We live close to the capital of our nation. The city of Washington, DC is full of monuments and memorials. It would take weeks to visit all the different monuments spread throughout the whole city. We seem to like public rewards and recognitions: memorials, monuments, medals, citations, or parades. The monuments are all clean, pristine, usually brilliant white.
Today the Word of God presents us with a monument that is not a memorial or monument made of white marble but rather an everlasting remembrance that lives on to this day: a mother’s faith passed on to her children and that faith lived out in her children. A mother who has a faith so strong that she was able to encourage her children to remain faithful in the face of the of torture and the threats of death. Her faith in the Creator was stronger than despair and death. Her sons received that faith and lived it out to the extreme of being able to face death.
We live in a culture surrounded by external monuments that has forgotten that the most important monuments are the ones that we build in the hearts and souls of our children by passing on our faith. The transmission of our faith from one generation to the next generation has an oral component. But much more important is the visible, daily testimony of a life lived in faith by a faithful family: parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, and all of us in the local faith community. Today this is a forgotten vocation. How often are we signs against the Word of God and faith in our daily lives? How often do we give ourselves dispensations from living as true Christians? How often do we encourage our children to follow cultural norms that are contrary to the Gospel? Our teenagers get to the age of Confirmation and complain about any requirement for community service. Then the parents support them in their complaining! We are all lost in looking for money, studies, degrees, prestige, sports, after school activities, having a good resume, and feeling good. Our culture, our family structure, and our form of child rearing seem to lead us to physical/spiritual sickness, pain, and despair.
The mother in today’s Word of God was focused giving her faith to her children and on maintaining them in the way of faith at all costs. Her steadfast faith leads her beyond her suffering, pain, despair, and mourning. She knew where life comes from and where it is headed. She knew how to give thanks and where to orientate her thankfulness. She knew how to live in such a way as to teach that faith and thankfulness to her children.
Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother:
…. courageously because of her hope in the Lord
…filled with a noble spirit that stirred her
she exhorted each of them
in the language of their ancestors with these words:
“…I do not know how you came into existence in my womb;
…The creator will give you back both breath and life,
because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law”.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_mother_and_her_seven_sons_put_to_death.jpg
