Toe-to-toe

Just about two years ago, I received a sad phone call from my good friends — Germaine and Michael — with the news that Germaine's mom, Dorothy, had just died. The news was at one and the same time a surprise and not a surprise. "Mom Klein," as she referred to herself when she wrote to me (and how I experienced her), suffered with Alzheimer's for five years and had been at death's door several months before her death. Yet, when death does come, it does so as an unexpected stranger, no matter how prepared we think we are for its arrival.

It was a tender honor for me to celebrate the funeral Mass for “Mom Klein” together with her dear husband and all of her eight children. As coincidence would have it, Dorothy was not only buried in the Christ our Savior Mausoleum where my mom’s body rests; she is laid to rest in a crypt directly on the parallel side of my mom’s crypt. As Germaine noted it, our moms now rest “toe-to-toe.”

Toes are an important part of our bodies. They provide necessary balance. They make motion happen. They are foundational. Balance, motion, foundation — all are fundamental realities of your life and mine, all are realities introduced to us by our mothers.

Mothers teach us to balance. Mothers nudge us beyond the present, moving us through the present to the future. Mothers are foundations; they root us to them, to family, to every important relationship in our lives.

My mom, Susan, and Germaine’s mom, Dorothy, now “toe-to-toe” with each other, sparked in me a reflection on another mother in our lives — holy mother church.

Many names

There are many names given to the church — “mystical body of Christ,” “people of God,” “pilgrim people,” “disciple,” “the church militant,” among others.

My favorite title is church as “mother.” What a tender title! The church really is a mother to all of us Catholics:

• Through her, we are filled with the life of Christ at baptism;
• Through her, we experience God’s compassion and mercy in confession;
• Through her, we receive the ultimate nourishment and union with Jesus in the Eucharist;
• Through her, we are energized by the powerful support of the Holy Spirit in confirmation;
• Through her, we are strengthened by the healing and reassuring companionship of Christ in the sacrament of anointing of the sick;
• Through her, the love of a woman and man, called by God to be wife and husband, become so in the sacrament of matrimony;
• Through her, deacons, priests and bishops are ordained for service through holy orders;
• Through her, lay ecclesial ministers are recognized for their invaluable leadership roles in the church through commissioning;
• Through her, God’s word is proclaimed, adapted, applied to our day-to-day life’s journey;
• Through her, our hearts are expanded in love to reach out to anyone in need;
• Through her, we connect with God in public prayer;
• Through her, we receive the name of Christ as “Christians;”
• Through her, we are called to be excited about our faith by being “the Church Alive” wherever we go and in whatever we do.

For all mothers

In each and all these ways, and many other ways the church meets us “toe-to-toe,” giving us balance, moving us toward the kingdom and being the foundation of who we are as sisters and brothers of Jesus.

This Mother’s Day, as we give thanks to God for our moms, living here or living in heaven — we also give thanks to God for our holy mother church who seeks to place us “toe-to-toe” with God.