PAUSE FOR REFLECTION
by Ken Rolheiser
Our Mother who art in heaven 

One line in Il Divo’s song “Mama” always chokes me with emotion. I think of my mother’s sacrifice and every mother’s sacrifice. When a baby is born, a mother’s life is on hold. Everything else takes second place.

The line that catches me is “I know you had dreams”. We all do, but a mother’s dreams are put on hold for us. And I think of Mary the Mother of Jesus and how she totally gave up everything with her “Yes” to God’s plan.

And I think of my Mother and how our dreams became more important to her than her dreams.

Now imagine God as a Mother and apply the words of Il Divo’s song “Mama”. Every line relates to the love God has for us as a Mamma.

Mama thank you for who I am
There but for the grace of God…
Thank you for all the things I'm not
I really didn’t turn out too badly
Forgive me for the words unsaid
How many times have I not talked to God?
For the times
I forgot

Mama remember all my life
God looks at our whole life effort
You showed me love, you sacrificed
And sent your Son to save me
Think of those young and early days
God’s hand and God’s Angels have always been with me
How I've changed
Along the way (along the way)

And I know you believed
God has faith in me even when I don’t
And I know you had dreams
God has dreams for us and he gives us dreams
And I'm sorry it took all this time to see
That I am where I am because of your truth
And I miss you, I miss you

Mama forgive the times you cried
Especially when your Son died
Forgive me for not making right
All of the storms I may have caused
And I've been wrong
Dry your eyes (dry your eyes)
God should not have to weep for us

Mama I hope this makes you smile
I hope you're happy with my life
At peace with every choice I made
How I've changed
Along the way
And I know you believed in all of my dreams
And I owe it all to you mama

And our Heavenly Mother Mary has dreams for us and loves us into perfection. In Pope Saint Pius X’s Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum (1904) we read:

The Apostle [St John] continues: "And, being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered" (Apoc. xii., 2). John therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal happiness, yet travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth was it?

Surely it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be generated to the perfect charity of
God, and to eternal happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which the Virgin from heaven above watches over us …

Our Mother Mary also has dreams for us and with an agony of love urges us to fullness of life.

Yes! It is with gratitude we continue living. You and I are God’s greatest love song. I pray that we may be “love smacked”. God’s abundance, so evident in nature, is never ending in love for us.

Thank you to the God who helps us when we cannot help ourselves.

(570 words)