Birth and Breasts

Appreciating our natural and supernatural mothers

10/09/2021

Lk 11:27-28 While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

There is probably no one on earth who will love you quite like your mother. I say this with all due respect to dads, of course, who also love their children but in different ways. For example, only a mother actually carries you in her womb for nine months before you ever see the light of day. She loved you long before anyone else ever even saw and loved you. Then, she alone endures the pains of childbirth, although often she wishes she could share that privilege with her husband.

And then she alone nurses the baby at her breast, feeding the child with the best milk and nurturing him with her look of unconditional love. It is said a baby’s eyesight can only focus between six inches to a foot, about the distance between a baby and a mother’s face while the baby is nursing at her breast. Baby and mother exchange very loving looks.

In the gospel today, someone – she must have been a mother – is moved by this same maternal privilege in relation to Jesus. She spontaneously exclaims: “Blessed is the womb that carried you, and the breast at which you nursed.” This woman was keenly aware that few people on earth ever love someone as much as their mother.

So, if it is a question of loving Jesus, then no one loved him more than his own mother, who carried him in her womb, gave birth to him and nursed him at her breast. Jesus, at least in his human nature, discovered the look of unconditional love in the eyes of his mother Mary, as she held him at her breast. Her loving eyes were the first things our Lord focused on.

But Jesus uses this exclamation of maternal love to shift the conversation onto a spiritual plane. That is, Jesus tries to teach the people the value of doing God’s will that will be nurtured in us by another mother, namely, Mother Church. Our spiritual mother, the Church, also carries us in her womb for nine months (like she does for RCIA candidates), and gives us birth in the waters of baptism.

Jesus explicitly ties baptism to birth in his conversation with Nicodemus in Jn 3, where he insists we must be “born again.” And then Mother Church will nourish us with her milk which is the Eucharist, the food of eternal life, as our Lord explains in Jn 6:51, “He who eats my flesh will live forever.” A mother’s milk is made of her own substance; her food is herself.

But beyond birth and breast-feeding is hearing and observing God’s word and will. I am always amazed by my parents, who often tell me: "Son, take care of your parish first.” (Aren’t you glad to hear that?) I know they would love for me to come to Springdale and spend time with them. My mom always throws up her arms and gives me a big hug whenever I walk in the door. No emperor ever had a better welcome reception.

Still, both my mom and dad would insist that these earthly obligations are secondary to my spiritual obligations as a priest. That is, as a priest of Mother Church, I must be a model of that unconditional love of a mother and give birth to new children of God by baptism and nurse them with the milk of the Eucharist, the Body of Christ. My parents know well that more important than the womb that carried me and the breasts that nursed me is my hearing the word of God and observing the will of God.

Today, take a minute to thank your mom for being the face of unconditional love for you. It was her womb that carried you and her eyes that gazed loving on you as she fed you with herself. But also thank God for the gift of Mother Church, who also gave you a spiritual birth in baptism and feeds you with the Flesh and Blood (the spiritual milk) of the Eucharist. And how blessed will you be if both your natural mother and your supernatural mother teach you to “hear the word of God and observe it.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!