Father Peter F. Hansen

Sermon for the 4 th Sunday after Easter

May 9, 2004: Mother's Day

A Woman in Travail

“A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. ”

“That so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The mystery and the power of motherhood have left men in awe and envy since the beginning of time. How a woman can co-create with God inside the wonderful processes of her body a brand new human being is beyond our comprehension . How she brings a child forth, sets the squirming little baby to her breast and takes charge of the rearing of a new person gives us a completely new appreciation of the strength that belies such a tender and gentle nature. Today we celebrate mothers and the wonder of motherhood.

      Our prayer book contains a beautiful and seldom used service called Thanksgiving of Women after Child Birth , or the Churching of Women . In this brief liturgy, a woman recently delivered of her baby comes before the congregation and offers a prayer of thanksgiving to God for having survived the birth and being given a child. The service culminates with this prayer:

O ALMIGHTY God, we give thee humble thanks for that thou hast been graciously pleased to preserve, through the great pain and peril of child-birth, this woman, thy servant, who desireth now to offer her praises and thanksgivings unto thee. Grant, we beseech thee, most merciful Father, that she, through thy help, may faithfully live according to thy will in this life, and also may be partaker of everlasting glory in the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

      Last Sunday's Gospel included a phrase of our Lord's last speech to His disciples before His arrest: “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” He is using this metaphor to denote the pain of His Passion that was approaching and events that would throw the Apostles into grief and panic, much like a woman in labor.

      Everyone knew the sights and sounds of the birthing chamber. It was scary. A quiet little woman, shy and demure at all other times becomes a cornered tiger when her hour is come. Her screams of pain are interspersed with shouted demands: she is in charge! And well it should be. What man can make life? This is the woman's arena, the battlefield of being born, the great labor of the feminine gender, and she is definitely in charge.

      Women have power, great power in motherhood. One great symbol of the Christian Church is Our Lord's mother, the Virgin Mary. In her is combined the two ways of holy life for women: both that of a virgin , undefiled, holding herself apart from the sins of the flesh; and of a mother , bringing life forth from her body and imparting that life from herself to her child. Mary is the Theotokos , the God-bearer, who brings forth the Christ and shows Him to the world. So is His Church: a lady, His bride, who holds the sacred Presence of His Body on earth with His sacramental Body and Blood in our Communion, and we show Him to the world through our lives and our love.

      A study by Dartmouth Medical College has declared the physiological and psychological effects that the mother-child relationship has on a growing infant. They have concluded, in a report entitled: Hardwired to Connect , that the very natural and innate behavior of a good mother toward her baby, of cooing and cradling, nursing and changing diapers, playing and singing and putting the infant to sleep are instrumental in the development of an important part of every child's brain. If a baby lives without this intimate contact with another human being, he is stunted physically and mentally for life. After the nine months of giving her own life to her child internally, she is still giving life to him for years to come. You women always knew this. Science has caught up with these evident facts.

      In envy, men have often sought to capture this mystery that women, especially mothers, possess. They have done this philosophically , by seeing themselves as the creators of life who merely plant the child in the field of her abdomen, as a farmer plants seeds in the ground. What arrogance! His part is minor and often without grace or intention. Today men seek to capture this mystery with the tools of misdirected science . Artificial means are devised to take the place of God's orderly processes, even joining the elements of life in a Petri dish, causing the fertilized eggs of human children to be frozen and then selected for implantation. Man has yet to devise a working mechanical womb, but he'll try. Woe to that child when a woman has nothing to do with its life in utero and after. Human cloning holds another threat to build a tower with sun-baked bricks so that men can reach heaven by their own efforts and pretended wisdom, that heaven where women have already been at home all along.

      So, for my part and in the name of every man who faces with due humility the awesome power that our God has created in the female, we surrender, we acknowledge, we celebrate, we praise, we thank and we bless all mothers, all women— for to share in the divine plan of creation, to nurture and give life is the very kiss of the Creator upon woman. We are your children . You gave us life. You gave yourself to us so we might grow. You understood us, even when our words were unformed. You cared. You loved. We can't touch that—not with missiles, or tanks, or skyscrapers, or steel bridges, or test tubes, or symphonies, or even sacred ministry . A mother holds the heart of God in her hand. A mother holds all our hearts, if we only let ourselves be held.

      It's been called a “Hallmark holiday,” and certainly the card makers and restaurants and confectioners and florists do a bundling business this day. But what more fitting honor do we do ourselves than to honor our mothers, as God commanded in the 5 th Commandment, the first one with promise. To do less would make me less than an infidel. Honor to whom honor is due: honor is due to women, mothers, teachers of the early and formative years. We can't fathom what you do, but our lives are made richer by it. We men can shake our spears and grow facial hair and build fast cars, but what can we compare to you? There is nothing to say.

      If mothers are to be held in awe, how much more our Creator who made women and all of us? If we honor mothers on a certain day, and rightly, how much more might we honor God every day, and rightly . Every morsel of food should be blessed and His grace acknowledged. Every day upon which we arise alive again we must thank Him for.

      Jesus was preparing His disciples for the horror and deep sorrow they were about to face with His words about a woman in travail. But was He not also preparing Himself to face the very pain He would undergo to bring forth from His own Death the birth of a new people? As He died suspended on painful nails, He forgave all sin, took the punishment of our waywardness, encouraged the good thief and gave His Mother into the care of His Apostle John. He died. And from the womb of a stone sepulchre, He emerged alive, having resurrected Himself from death . It is He who created the power of life and life-giving motherhood. Should He not be able to raise Himself alive again? If He is God, He can and He did. If He rose not again, He is not God.

      No religion has embodied the honoring of women like Christianity. We must not forget that. Even, as in this church, when we save the priesthood for males alone, we are honoring women. Woman gives life, a baby's food from her body, trains and develops every baby, teaches and leads every life. She knows the Creator by joining Him in His work through her ministry. Why would she need to step down to the priesthood? She would lose her covering, that of Her church and her spiritual protector. We men: husband, soldiers, police, priests, the good guys —protect the good women, not because they are weak , but because their strength is shown in such a better way than we can do. If we regard her as the weaker vessel, we miss the point. She is smaller, less muscular in physical stature for fighting or throwing a football, sure . But no man ever had the power of a woman in labor, giving birth, her whole body joined to the process, welded to the task of life-giving love. Jesus represented all people—males and females—as the second Adam. He is the Son of David in body through His mother Mary only. He is the Son of David, in kingship, through a bestowal by His earthly stepfather, Joseph, descendant of the ancient kings.

      We honor women in Christianity by holding feasts to Our Lady, by seeing each woman among us as an equally potential saint. The Christian virtues all give honor and place to women—setting aside lust and adultery, hatred and exploitation, selfishness and oppression. The faithful man is a faithful escort to his lady. No other faith has done so. Only witchcraft elevates women above men and in an unholy perversion of her power. We see the fruits of Islam in its degradation and subjugation of women. We hear of girl children left to die by their Hindu families. But the Christian who recognizes the glory of a woman, as God's final creation before His Resurrected Son, begins to grasp the glory of our God.

             PFH+