This weekend, as we pay tribute to all mothers, biological and spiritual, living and deceased, we also reflect on the Church as our Mother. In the weekly catechesis of Pope Francis on September 18, 2013 entitled “The Church is our Mother,” he shared that “among the images that the Second Vatican Council chose to help us understand the nature of the Church better, there is that of “mother”: the Church is our mother in faith, in supernatural life.” He asks, “In what sense and in what way is the Church Mother?”. Allow me to share an abridged version of his reflection.

First of all, a mother generates life. She carries her child in her womb and then delivers him to life, giving birth to him. The Church is like this: she bears us in the faith, through the work of the Holy Spirit who makes her fertile.

Certainly, faith is a personal act. I personally respond to God who makes himself known and wants to enter into friendship with me. But we do not become Christians alone and by our own effort, since the faith is a gift from God given to us in the Church and through the Church. The Church gives us the life of faith in Baptism: that is the moment in which she gives birth to us as children of God, the moment she gives us the life of God, she engenders us as a mother would.

Let us ask ourselves: How do I see the Church? As I am grateful to my parents for giving me life, am I grateful to the Church for generating me in the faith through Baptism?

Secondly, a mother does not stop at just giving life. With great care she helps her children grow, gives them milk, feeds them, teaches them the way of life, accompanies them always with her care, with her affection, with her love, even when they are grown up. In this, she also knows to correct them, to forgive them and understand them. She knows how to be close to them in sickness and in suffering.

The Church, like a good mother, does the same thing: she accompanies our development by transmitting to us the Word of God. She administers the Sacraments, nourishes us with the Eucharist, brings us the forgiveness of God through the Sacrament of Penance, and helps us in moments of sickness with the Anointing of the sick. The Church accompanies us throughout our entire life of faith.

We can then ask ourselves: What is my relationship with the Church? Do I feel like she is my mother who helps me grow as a Christian? Do I participate in the life of the Church?

Finally, in the first centuries of the Church, one thing was very clear: the Church, while being the mother of Christians, while “making” Christians, is also “made” by them. The Church is all of us. Thus, the motherhood of the Church is lived by us all, pastors and faithful. We are all called to collaborate for the birth of new Christians in the faith, we are all called to be educators in the faith and to proclaim the Gospel.

Each of us should ask: What do I do so that others might share in Christian life? Am I generous in my faith? We all take part in the motherhood of the church, so that the light of Christ may reach the far confines of the earth. Long live Holy Mother Church! Amen!