P. Gorazd Cetkovský, O.Carm.
The positive response from you, the readers, to the transcript of the recordings of two sermons from the July pilgrimage in Kostelní Vydří, published in the previous issue of the magazine, prompted me to similarly make the third sermon available. It was delivered during the last holy mass (you can tell a bit because of this, hence my mention).
Brothers and sisters,
first, I will explain why we read such an unusual Old Testament reading (Ex 2:1–10) during this service. The beginning of Moses' life, as described in the second book of Moses, is meant to primarily convey the wondrous guidance of God: neither Pharaoh's hatred nor cruelty toward the Israelites could prevent God from caring for his people. And there is even a hint of irony here: when Pharaoh wants all Hebrew boys to perish in the waters of the Nile, one of them is saved directly from the waters of the Nile and will even be raised in Pharaoh's house. We might say that he was almost Pharaoh's grandson. He certainly was then a "son of Pharaoh's daughter"—an adopted son. However, I want to highlight two details from this passage that you might have noticed. We want to meditate together on the motherhood of the Virgin Mary. By God's arrangement, the little boy Moses actually grew up with his mother. Thanks to his older sister, who stood on the bank of the Nile and at the right moment told Pharaoh's daughter: "I will find you a woman to nurse the child and take care of him," the boy normally grew up with his mommy. And only when he was a bit older did his biological mother hand him over to Pharaoh's daughter, who raised him as her own son. This meant that Moses received the highest possible education available in that land, that he was well secured materially, etc. Thus, we recognize Moses as a man who, in his human development, was endowed with a dual maternal influence that he could embrace. He was extraordinarily surrounded by maternal care.
I chose this as the starting point for our reflection. We come here to Kostelní Vydří to the pilgrimage site of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we celebrate holy masses, we pray—and all those mass prayers mention the Virgin Mary. And we often perceive her precisely as Mother. Not only as the Mother of Christ, but also as the mother of us believers, us disciples of Jesus. In order for this approach to the Virgin Mary as Mother not to become mundane, I want to focus our thoughts on it now.
First, we can realize how this plays out on a human level, in the natural human relationships. What happens when children lack their mother, when they miss maternal or even paternal influence? When a family somehow "doesn't function"? Professor Matějček, quite well-known for his books and reflections on family and child upbringing, says that much has changed regarding families in recent times. Unlike in the time of our ancestors—and you older ones will remember this well and can clearly recognize it—families have lost some of their functions. One of them is the "production" function. In the past, families were also, clumsily speaking, production units where everyone worked together (in the field, in the workshop) to make a living. In the oldest times, the family was also essentially the only educational institution: it was where one learned about life and how to approach it. Additionally, the family had a defensive function and also, we can say, an "insurance" function. And it certainly still has that today—where the extended family holds together. So when someone encounters misfortune, the whole family mobilizes and tries to help.
These functions of the family today seem to have significantly receded into the background, and two are now clearly emerging.
First: the family is to provide a reliable emotional foundation for each person within it. Not only for children but also for everyone who constitutes the family. A safe home, mutual trust, a foundation where one does not attack the other, one trusts the other, and there is a mutual effort to reconcile. This is very important for each of us.
And then the family has another function, which specifically concerns children: the family is to prepare them for life in broader society. So that the child, who comes into this world within the family, gradually acquires the ability to live outside this family later on and to create its own family.
Surely you have observed in your surroundings (and experts could speak with authority about this and probably illustrate it with examples from their practice) how it turns out when families do not fulfill these functions for some reason. How a person can become fundamentally uprooted and how this accompanies them throughout their life. It is very important for all of us to live in a family environment, to receive maternal and paternal influence.
And I, brothers and sisters, am speaking at length about this because I am convinced that in the spiritual realm it is—how we colloquially say—"the same in pale blue." Even in the spiritual realm, it is very important for us to have such a background, and we express this by calling God Father, and by giving the Virgin Mary the title of Mother. From the very usage of the words "father" and "mother," it is evident that we perceive God's influence, as well as that of the Virgin Mary and the saints, on our lives quite similarly to the influence of parents.1 And God was not satisfied with being just our Father, our Creator; He sent His Son, who became a human like us, to make God perfectly visible and tangible for us. So that we could see in Lord Jesus how great God's love for us is, how interested God is in us. And when this Son of God, "born of a woman" (Gal 4:4), sacrificed himself for us on the cross, as we have heard in the Gospel (John 19:25–27), at that moment, he gave us the woman from whom he took our human life as our mother. And in John, he says to each believer, to each of his disciples: "Behold, your mother..." Therefore: Hold on to her. This is your mother.—And to Mary, he says: "This is your son," or—when we expand it: "This is your daughter."
So the fact that we call the Virgin Mary our mother—and that here at this pilgrimage site we have honored her as such for three hundred years—is not some whim of ours, but we can refer to the fact that Jesus himself intentionally gave us Mary to be that maternal foundation for us, to be our mother. Just as we have our mom, who gave us life. Just as we have our earthly father, and in God, we have our "heavenly father." Similarly, Jesus desires that Mary enter our lives and be present in them. And He uses the word "mother." Thus, the Virgin Mary is given to us. Jesus did not have to do this, but he intentionally gave Mary to us as our mother—so that we might experience that motherhood and maternal foundation even more...
And now—I want to be as brief as possible—I will sharpen these thoughts: we are gathered here at this pilgrimage site as those who call upon God as our heavenly Father and who call Mary our mother. We believe that we experience here a meeting with them: that God is here and that He is somehow "closer" here than elsewhere, especially through our shared prayer. And we believe that this community of prayer is also a community and meeting with Mary, which has a special power... But we will leave from here. In an hour or a few hours, you will be back home. Tomorrow, many of us will go to work. We will come among neighbors, among people who do not believe in God or declare themselves to Him and do not similarly declare themselves to the Virgin Mary.
And the thought I want to present to you here, brothers and sisters, is: we are those who experience more fatherhood, more paternal care, and more maternal care than the people around us. We, here at the Eucharist, but also in various other ways when we pray to God or to the Virgin Mary, receive more paternal and maternal foundation than those other people around us. To put it very bluntly, I can ask us: "Is this visible in our lives, or will it be visible in our lives?" As I clumsily outlined, experts say that it is very evident in children whether the child in front of us has a mom and a dad, that is, whether they are in an environment where they can be sure of themselves even with their weaknesses and mistakes, or whether they do not have such an environment. It shows in the child whether they meet with their mom, whether she attends to them, or whether the child grows up alone like a post in a fence! And we are those who—here at this place—meet with our mom Mary, who we turn to and present her with our concerns and requests. (And I can relate this directly to our relationship with God as our heavenly Father, a relationship that occurs here through Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist.)
Thus, we are gathered here as people who are receiving great support. And it is good that we remember this and somehow "immerse" ourselves in it. As I reflected on this, I realized: it is interesting; at first glance, it seems that it is the other way around. Often in families, it is the believing part of the family who are the older ones. And thus, it appears that those who have "more life," more life force, are the younger ones. That we in the family are the slower and more hesitant ones, whereas "full of life" are the others. It can also complicate the reality that we, as the older ones, are tempted to various traditionalism and recall how things used to be, whereas the others, who are younger and do not strongly declare themselves to God, on the other hand, have a much stronger relationship with the present. And they tell us: "Now is the time to live!" And: "Today things are done this way and that way... I will stick to this!...". Or—even more seriously—they often look at us and see that we are limited by our faith. We cannot do many things because they are prohibited, and other things we must do because they are commanded. We cannot do this or that, because it goes against one of the commandments of the Decalogue, and we must pray and must go to church... And it seems to them like a limiting unfreedom. The true "fullness of life" must be somewhere else than in what we do...—So this might be the perspective of the non-believers. But, brothers and sisters, I want to emphasize today that if we meet here at this pilgrimage site with the Virgin Mary and pray to our heavenly Father, then this should lead us to be people who are full of life! Full of life. Different from a young person or a child in our family who simply "buzzes" with life, but it is much more superficial... I would like to help us all with this reflection so that we reach that deep inner life that is poured into us here and so that we deeply "breathe" it in. I believe that if we truly surrender to God now, if we look at the Virgin Mary and how she lived her life (including the situation where she stood at the cross), if we entrust to Mary everything we live with, if we experience these blessed moments at this pilgrimage site, we will truly leave here as those who are filled with life.
And this filling with life will push out of our hearts any laziness, any indifference toward other people or what is happening around us. If we meet here with our heavenly Mother, if we pray to God as Father, we will be people who are not passive but active. We will be people who are not timid, not "poisoned" by anything, nor resigned to anything; after all, God gives us through His care for us—even through Mary—the strength we need to overcome various obstacles and rise above various sorrows. If we experience a meeting with the Virgin Mary as with a mother here, then we cannot leave this place as cold people, closed off in our own worlds, selfish people who only blame others for not going to confession while not caring about what others are really living! Why they are young and so sad! We will not be people who uncritically succumb to unchecked personal vices or the widespread deficiencies of our surroundings, but people who are very free! If we experience at this place a meeting with Mary as our Mother, then we must leave this place internally enriched. Like a child who has been with their mom... It might not be on the level of feelings, but on the level of faith. We really are people who are internally rich. Even when we keep the commandments, even when we pray and devote our time to things that others do not take time for, we leave this place as people who are internally wealthy! And this wealth is on another level; it cannot be compared to how much money we have or how much free time we have or how healthy we are...
In conclusion, summarizing these thoughts: there is a difference, and it shows whether children have a mom and whether that mom cares for them, or whether it isn't the case. There is a difference whether children have a background or not. And likewise: if we come to this place, calling Mary Mother, if we call upon God as Father, if we claim that this is important to us, that we find foundation here, if this is true, then it flows into our lives and enters within us... Let me sharpen it once more: it could quite well happen that a grandfather returning from a pilgrimage has more life within him than his fifteen-year-old grandson. So it may happen that a middle-aged person who entrusts their worries to God, prays, and entrusts to Him their whole family and all the worries they have about it, returns home with a greater spark of life within them than a healthy young person who has friends, money, etc...—and yet is missing something! The deeper things that Mary gives us as a mother, the deepest things that God gives us as a Father. Therefore, may we leave this place thus internally fulfilled and assured that we are children who have great, great support. Not to mention that God willing, we will return here...
Amen.
