The Mother’s Day Challenge

While speaking at the Ball for Life in Manhattan the other night, I suggested we all do this:

1. Pray a Marian prayer ever day for mothers who need support.

The Memorare, perhaps? Pick one of your own choosing.

2. Tell three people about the work of Good Counsel, which runs maternity homes and helps women be the moms they’re called to be. Wherever you are, find a crisis-pregnancy/maternity resource and let people know about it! Perhaps become familiar with them for the first time, spread the word, and show some support. Every week we could be doing this. So that the world knows that there is help!

3. Spend and hour in prayer for motherhood every week.

Mothers can change the world. And that’s not just a flower commercial.

As the Catholic Church wants the women of the world to know:

You women have always had as your lot the protection of the home, the love of beginnings and an understanding of cradles. You are present in the mystery of a life beginning. You offer consolation in the departure of death. Our technology runs the risk of becoming inhuman. Reconcile men with life and above all, we beseech you, watch carefully over the future of our race. Hold back the hand of man who, in a moment of folly, might attempt to destroy human civilization.
Wives, mothers of families, the first educators of the human race in the intimacy of the family circle, pass on to your sons and your daughters the traditions of your fathers at the same time that you prepare them for an unsearchable future. Always remember that by her children a mother belongs to that future which perhaps she will not see.
And you, women living alone, realize what you can accomplish through your dedicated vocation. Society is appealing to you on all sides. Not even families can live without the help of those who have no families. Especially you, consecrated virgins, in a world where egoism and the search for pleasure would become law, be the guardians of purity, unselfishness and piety. Jesus who has given to conjugal love all its plenitudes, has also exalted the renouncement of human love when this is for the sake of divine love and for the service of all.
Lastly, women in trial, who stand upright at the foot of the cross like Mary, you who so often in history have given to men the strength to battle unto the very end and to give witness to the point of martyrdom, aid them now still once more to retain courage in their great undertakings, while at the same time maintaining patience and an esteem for humble beginnings.
Women, you do know how to make truth sweet, tender and accessible, make it your task to bring the spirit of this council into institutions, schools, homes and daily life. Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.

Let’s spread that message with our lives. Helping mothers. Being mothers. Loving mothers. Knowing the power of women — making truth sweet, tender and accessible. Saving the peace of the world.