Mothers at the altar

Nothing quite compares to the  love of a mother.  That is my view. I see it all the time. I know that some children suffer want and neglect but the overwhelming evidence points to a high point of self-sacrificing love between mothers and their children that is remarkable.  Saint Monica (c. 332-387 A.D.), whose feast day is today, prayed ceaselessly for her wayward son, Augustine. Eventually, he saw the light. He would become a great saint, bishop and doctor of the Church (St Augustine of Hippo) and author of major classics in Christian literature and theology.  He wrote, in his Confessions:

…she had learned to bring to the Churches of the martyrs a breast filled with more purified petitions, and to give what she could to the poor; that so the communication of the Lord's Body might be there rightly celebrated, where, after the example of His Passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned   Confessions 6.2.2

On her death bed she said:

Lay this body any where; let not the care for that any way disquiet you: this only I request, that you would remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be. Confessions 9.11.27

In the third Eucharist Prayer of the Roman Catholic Church the priest prays:

To our departed brothers and sisters and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance to your kingdom.

I was blessed with a loving mother and father.  I am particularly grateful for their prayers during their earthly life including especially their participation in the Mass and, I know, their prayers for me over many years. This was not without relevance in my own personal journey.  Today, I recall with gratitude their lives and pray for their souls – that one day we will be reunited.  At every mass we remember the faithful departed and unite our prayers with those of the saints and angels who are in Heaven.

Some day, I will depart this world and others, God willing, will pray for me by name and remember me at the altar as they do for all the faithful departed.  For the Christian, death is just a passage from this life to the life to come,