Dear Lord, relying on your promises to us, I turn to you in trust that
my mother is with you and that she is enjoying your loving embrace. You
alone know how she loved the best she could and how she faithfully endured
the struggles that she faced. You know the graces you gave her and you
know the grace she was for me and for so many. For all the ways she truly
loved the way you loved her, please reward her, Lord. May she enjoy the
communion of all her family and friends who are with you.
Lord, I know my mother still loves us who are still here on earth. I
ask you that you might listen to her fervent prayers for us. Help me to
grow into a new and deeper relationship with my mother now, as I long
for the day when we will both meet in your embrace - freed from all that
might have hindered our relationship on earth, knowing and understanding
everything we did not know or understand on this earth.
I ask you this with faith in the resurrection, trusting my mother's love,
and desiring that she know my love for her. Amen.
Mother's Day: A day we set aside each year to honor our mothers. The woman who sacrificed her wants to make sure she met our needs. The woman who held us as babies, walked next to us as toddlers, pushed us through our teens, and stood behind us as we entered into adulthood. The woman who offered encouragement when we succeeded and comfort when we faltered. The woman who always knew what to say, when to say it and how to relay it.
What makes a mom a mom? There are many women in today's world that have never given birth, yet they are some of the best mothers in the world. The women we sometimes forget to honor each year that have made a positive impact in our lives as we took steps in our journeys. The women that have taken on the role of mother when birth mothers are no longer in our lives. The women that have helped birth mothers care for and love their children. The women that have chosen to be substitute mothers in the absence of birth mothers.
Mother's Day is the one day a year, no matter what age we become, we embrace the love of our mother, and try to show her we love her just as equally, or more, in return. We love our moms every day of the year, but on this one day each year we honor her in a bigger way then we have since the last Mother's Day. We give her the little gifts of life, that last a lifetime in her heart. We spend the weekend doing yard work for her, mowing, weeding, planting flowers in her flower beds. Spending extra time and care, smiling big as we remember the reason behind the gift. We grill her favorite foods or take her to her favorite restaurant, with a good feeling in our hearts, knowing we are doing this to honor all she has feed us through our years. We gift her with clothing, perfume, jewelry, flowers. It is her day, and we are going to make sure she knows how much we love her and how much we appreciate who we are due to her love for us.
Death found my mother one and half years ago when with a heavy heart my brother and I made the decision to remove her from life support. The chances of our mother passing on to a life beyond a breath of life were greater then her surviving the massive stroke she had suffered. The day before she was removed from life support I honored my mother on earth one last time, as if it were Mother's Day and the next tomorrow would find us back in our walk of life together on earth. Mom died on a Tuesday and on the Monday before her death I visited the last place my Mother had lived. An apartment home in an assisted living community that allowed her the freedom of independence and the comfort of on site care. I left there and took a walk in Frog Pond park, where my mother used to sit on a bench and watch the children play. I left there and went to IHOP, a restaurant where I used to take her and enjoy sitting with her for a meal, visiting about our days gone by. Next I would go to the church I attend to sit and reflex on the life we lived together as mother and son on Bushnell in Sioux City Iowa. I found myself back at the hospital, standing next to her as she laid in that bed, hooked up to life, through tubes and machines.
I remember the sadness that walked with me on that Monday, in my search for where I could feel life. The life of my mom. It had been years since I felt any kind of life from my mom that had quality to it. I was looking for hope, the hope that tomorrow when they took her off the support of life she was on she would gasp a deep breath of air, get back in the walk of life. I found no peace and comfort at any of these places I went to try to feel the life of my mom. The last bit of life I ever felt in my mom was the day I left the Bushnell house. The last bit of life she breathed as I walked out of that door and got into that car with my brother to escape the abuse at the hands of my dad. I felt then what I was feeling today. The breath I exhaled the day I left Bushnell, the breath I inhaled as I never looked back ... the next breath of life in ending the Bushnell nightmare would be taken tomorrow, when my mother would exhale her final breath on earth, and would journey to heaven to take her spot in eternity, where each breath thereafter would free her of all the pain and suffering life on earth had inflicted her with.
“The Prayer of Heaven,”
My God, I adore You and I love You!
Through the hands of the Madonna, with Your grace and help I accept from
You, O Lord, at the unexpected hour any kind of death as it will please
You to send me, and I ask of You the grace not to have fear of death.
Please forgive all of my sins.
I accept my death in union with the Sacrifice that You, O Jesus, High
and Eternal Priest, Yourself made on the Cross and that now You renew on
many Altars. I intend to offer to You my death in the spirit of the
Holy Masses which at that moment will be celebrated and I offer You Your
infinite merits to pay for my sins and the penalty of Purgatory.
Saved by Your Blood, through Your merits and those of Your Mother I ask
You the same mercy granted to the Good Thief, namely the grace to enter
immediately with You into Paradise and to have immediately the perfect
Beatific Vision of God. Amen.
I thank You, my Jesus!
by Monsignor Charles M. Mangan
I love you mom and I pray everyday for your presence in my life from heaven.
Happy Mothers Day!
~ Jett
