For Love of a Friend

This is the first of my Mother's Day Tribute posts, in response to the contest I offered at Behold Your Mother. This one was not a formal submission ... and yet the story touched me so deeply I felt compelled to share it. As I promised in the contest rules, Marie is receiving a free copy of Behold Your Mother.

This evening I received an e-mail from a man (I don't know how he got my name) asking me for a Mother's Day gift suggestion for a childhood friend of his. It seems this woman -- we'll call her Marie -- taught him everything he ever knew about the faith. In a real sense, she was an extraordinary mom to him. This on top of raising a small army of her own, including one sweet daughter (we'll call her Carol).

A short time ago, Carol was brutally murdered by her own husband, who turned the gun on himself. The couple left behind three girls -- the eldest a teenager, the youngest only seven. Somehow Marie found the strength to bury her daughter and take the three girls to raise, putting each of them through college.

My correspondent writes: "Through it all, and above all, for all of them, was this incomprehensible faith in our Lord and our Blessed Mother, and the belief that Both suffered every moment with them."

This Mother's Day, please remember Marie and her husband, for courage and strength -- and say a prayer for the repose of the soul of her daughter, that by the Mercy of God she and her husband will rest in peace.

What's an "Extraordinary Mom"?

This blog is dedicated to extraordinary moms everywhere.

Extraordinary moms come in all shapes and sizes and colors, just like their families. Some are pretty. Some are sporty. Some are frazzled. Most are prayerful, because everyone needs a little backup sometimes.

In his 1988 letter entitled "On the Vocation and Dignity of Women," Pope John Paul II acknowledged that women by their very nature are motherly. Whether or not we ever bring our own offspring into the world, we instinctively nurture the lives around us courageously ... often sacrificially.

Extraordinary moms, then, are women who invest themselves in the life of another person -- in many cases, the life of a child. These women include

* Adoptive mothers

* Foster mothers

* Stepmothers

* Grandmothers (custodial, proximate, and long-distance)

* Godmothers

* Sunday school and religious education teachers

* Teachers of all kinds

* Women who are single and/or childless, who come alongside "regular" mothers and help share the burdens associated with our vocation. These may be the most courageous of all extraordinary mothers, for they nurture mothers and children alike!

This is not intended to downplay the importance of biological motherhood -- not at all! Without you, there would be no children in this world for us to love. And yet, just as laity who serve as Eucharistic ministers are considered "extraordinary" in that they fill in or substitute for the "ordinary" minister (the priest), so extraordinary mothers come alongside and support (and in some cases, fill in for) "ordinary" ones.

Extraordinary mothers are extraordinary because we take after the best mother of all -- Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Just as she said "Yes" to God and His plan for her life, so we say "Yes" to all God has for us. Whether that includes carrying ten children in our bodies ... or just one special one, under our heart ... the response of extraordinary moms is the same:

"Yes, Lord, Yes!"

As Mother's Day approaches, is there an "extraordinary mother" in your life you would like to remember? Why not give her "Tea with Mary"? For more information, click here.