Barbara Mason, a member of
the NSC in England, shares that, despite not being able to have children,
God has called her to motherhood for him.
The goal of my life had always been to be a mother. Thus I was devastated
at the age of 32 – after eight years of marriage, two miscarriages,
and many attempts to induce fertility – to be told, that due
to an inherited medical condition, I had completed the menopause and
there was no hope of conceiving a child.
My husband, who is English and I (an American) are practising Catholics.
I’d always taken my faith seriously, even choosing to get my
degree from an elite Catholic women’s university in New York
so that I could become “an intelligent informed Catholic woman”.
It was the late 1960’s and everyone on the campus was swept away
in the heady Spirit of Vatican II. Interestingly we never actually
read the documents of the Second Vatican Council (I have done so since).
Instead we were taught our tutors’ personal interpretations of
certain sections of them.
Informed conscience needed
When the encyclical Humanae Vitae was issued, for example, I was
told that each person should follow his or her individual conscience.
I don’t recall the essential addition “and you have a responsibility
to make sure your conscience is informed by the teachings of the Church,
through Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium.” But in those
days I never read my Bible, and my idea of Church, was of an antique
human institution of Italian origin run by out-of-touch old men. In
fact those were the exact words I used after we were married when
my husband reminded me about the Church’s teaching on artificial
birth control. Defiantly I took the pill for the first nine months
of our marriage until I had to stop because a raging yeast infection
(a frequent side effect) forced me off it.
All this time my behaviour seemed right to me. I was unaware that
I was living a life of autonomy ie making up my own mind what was
right and wrong - the original temptation of Adam and Eve. But increasingly
I became aware of a lack of peace and inner turmoil, without knowing
the cause. After all I had a lovely husband and an interesting life.
At this point I was invited to a Life in the Spirit Seminar in my
local parish in Panama where we were living at the time.
I remember one of the talks particularly challenged me. “How
have you led your life?” said the speaker. “Have you made
your own plans or have you asked God what His plan is for you?”
I realised that I had never asked God about motherhood since my plan
to be a mother seemed such a godly one. It also had never occurred
to me that my insistence on my own autonomy had some terrible side
effects spiritually. I had made myself my own Lord so I was separating
myself from Christ and wasn’t allowing the Holy Spirit to convict
me of sin and lead me to the Truth (two of his jobs). When I realised
this I repented of my pride and was flooded with peace and the overflowing
joy of the Holy Spirit.
I now wanted to live my life for God in a new way, serving Him instead
of expecting Him to serve me. So when I was shortly afterwards told
that I would never have the children I longed for, I wasn’t pushed
over the edge as I might have been before. Eventually, through prayer
and circumstances of my life, God showed me that His plan for me was
to be a spiritual mother.
Called to hospitality
Initially I wasn’t very happy about it because like any woman
I wanted my own children. But I began to realise that God wanted my
husband and me to be hospitable and open up our home to others in
a way that wouldn’t have been possible if we had been raising
our own family. We had a large flat and gradually found it became
a watering hole for single young people working as lay missionaries
for the Church. At the same time friends of ours asked if my husband
and I could look after their three teenagers while they were studying
at a nearby college.
When we moved to England the children continued to come. First was
one of our many godchildren who needed a home. His father was a drug
addict and his mother couldn’t cope, so she sent him to us for
several years. Our “children” have ranged in age from ten
to twenty, and we have parented them from a few days to several years.
Recently one of our friends brought a small group of deprived inner
city children to spend the weekend with us. They had never been to
the country before (we live in a rural area) and they enjoyed building
bonfires, riding mountain bikes and playing football. One of the girls
was happy just sitting in the kitchen chatting to me and learning
to make brownies. They were also drawn, for that short time, into
our world of faith by the simple things we take for granted like grace
before meals and Sunday Mass.
“Open to life”
We haven’t had to go out looking for any of these children.
They have all been “sent” to us. The Catholic teaching to
be “open to life” pertains to us as well as to the “natural”
parent. Some children who have come to us we haven’t been ready
for; some have been easier than others, while some really have kept
us on our knees in prayer for wisdom, patience and love! I’ve
come to realise that in this age of fractured families in a materialistic,
secular society, there are large numbers of neglected children, or
single parents who need support in raising their children. The Lord
needs willing and available couples with the mind of Christ and empowered
by His Spirit to meet these needs.
“My ways are not your ways,” says the Lord (Is 55.8)
Called
to "Spiritual Motherhood"
