First, I recommend reading 2 Mc
7:1, 20-31. If you don’t have a Bible
handy or can’t find 2nd Maccabees in yours (ask me about that later!), use this
link: http://www.catholic.org/bible/daily_reading/?select_date=2011-11-16
This was the Old Testament
reading at Mass on Wednesday and it just astounded me.
Where has this woman been all
my life?! This unnamed mother watches her seven sons become martyrs all
in one day because of their family's extreme faith in the Lord and some rock
hard devotion to His laws. I love that this reading is all about the
chick. The men are mentioned first, 20but the mother was especially admirable and
worthy of honourable remembrance, for she watched the death of seven sons in
the course of a single day, and bravely endured it because of her hopes in the
Lord. It's like the author is saying HEY, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS
WOMAN! Because let's be real, in almost every Bible story the males have
more cool things to do than the females do. Until this moment, this
woman's greatest accomplishment in life was bearing and raising seven
sons. Not that that is anything to shake a stick at. A woman's worth
was measured by her fertility, and so many sons in one family was considered a
huge blessing from God. Unlike today, when having any more than 1.5
children is just ridiculous. Actually, what's ridiculous is denying the
amazing life-giving power of creation that God lets parents borrow from Him in
the sacrament of marriage.
But I digress. So Awesome Mystery Woman has this incredible gift of seven sons...and she lets them all die. In fact, she encourages them to die. What?! Is she mental? No, in fact, she is full of wisdom and full of hope. She realizes two very important truths. First, while all seven of these sons came from her womb, she doesn't give herself the credit for their existence. It's all God. 22 ‘I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part.’ 28 ‘I implore you, my child, look at the earth and sky and everything in them, and consider how God made them out of what did not exist, and that human beings come into being in the same way.' She is giving glory to the Almighty Creator and giving back to Him what was always His. Second, she realizes that eternal life far outweighs a short, grim, earthly one. While every mother's natural instinct is to preserve the life of her offspring and keep them with her, this one is graced with the ability to look beyond. In counseling her last remaining son she says, 29 ‘do not fear this executioner, but prove yourself worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that I may receive you back with them in the day of mercy.' Somehow she knows that while appeasing this evil king would win them more time on earth, a godly mother would instead prefer to share with them the everlasting reward. In doing so, she commits their last moments in life to gruesome torture. Each son's death is increasingly monstrous, and their mother dies last. Scripture doesn't go into detail about how she died. We probably don't want to know. But I think we can all be pretty sure what...WHO...was waiting for her on the other side.
I am not a parent. Sometimes I feel like one, but I am getting adequately paid to take care of three or four little ones at a time, and after twelve-plus hours, I willingly hand them over to someone else with a nursing license like mine. But I think I can at least partially appreciate the depth of Awesome Mystery Mom's sacrifice. Everyone knows how far moms go for their kids. To the end of the earth, flipping over semi trucks and making their voices go all deep and scary when their babies are threatened. But THIS mom says, "No. These children were Yours first, O Lord. Your laws are bigger than my desires." And she knows that the best thing she can do is ensure they will live together forever in Heaven. How many parents can do this? In movies where people get tortured, the last straw is always bringing in a loved one. The person being interrogated drops everything, forsakes all sworn obediences to governments and ideals to prevent even a hair on their special someone's head from being harmed. It seems unnatural for a child to die before their parent, and when it happens, it is a unique and raw kind of grief that doesn't ever truly end.
But we have this amazing woman to look to as an example of the courage we typically lack. We have Abraham, whom God asked to sacrifice his only son, the one he had been waiting for until his old age. Abraham, who in the picture of obedience had his knife to his son's throat when God told him to drop it. But the ultimate example, the best, is the Father Himself. After lovingly creating us in His image, we twisted the gift of free will into evil and hurt. To save us from ourselves, God sent us His Son, knowing He would give everything right down to His Body and His Blood. God didn't just watch His Son die...He watched Him suffer greatly. He let his Child suffer and die for a people who didn't even love Him back.
Very few of us are called to be martyrs. Even fewer, I would hope, are called to give their children away as such. But that doesn't let any of us off the hook. We are called to be just that obedient...if not unto death, then to the death of our own desires. We are called to great sacrifice...if not our physical lives, then a daily sacrifice of our former lives.
God sacrificed everything for you...weak, sinful, prideful, somehow loveable person that you are. What will you sacrifice today?
But I digress. So Awesome Mystery Woman has this incredible gift of seven sons...and she lets them all die. In fact, she encourages them to die. What?! Is she mental? No, in fact, she is full of wisdom and full of hope. She realizes two very important truths. First, while all seven of these sons came from her womb, she doesn't give herself the credit for their existence. It's all God. 22 ‘I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part.’ 28 ‘I implore you, my child, look at the earth and sky and everything in them, and consider how God made them out of what did not exist, and that human beings come into being in the same way.' She is giving glory to the Almighty Creator and giving back to Him what was always His. Second, she realizes that eternal life far outweighs a short, grim, earthly one. While every mother's natural instinct is to preserve the life of her offspring and keep them with her, this one is graced with the ability to look beyond. In counseling her last remaining son she says, 29 ‘do not fear this executioner, but prove yourself worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that I may receive you back with them in the day of mercy.' Somehow she knows that while appeasing this evil king would win them more time on earth, a godly mother would instead prefer to share with them the everlasting reward. In doing so, she commits their last moments in life to gruesome torture. Each son's death is increasingly monstrous, and their mother dies last. Scripture doesn't go into detail about how she died. We probably don't want to know. But I think we can all be pretty sure what...WHO...was waiting for her on the other side.
I am not a parent. Sometimes I feel like one, but I am getting adequately paid to take care of three or four little ones at a time, and after twelve-plus hours, I willingly hand them over to someone else with a nursing license like mine. But I think I can at least partially appreciate the depth of Awesome Mystery Mom's sacrifice. Everyone knows how far moms go for their kids. To the end of the earth, flipping over semi trucks and making their voices go all deep and scary when their babies are threatened. But THIS mom says, "No. These children were Yours first, O Lord. Your laws are bigger than my desires." And she knows that the best thing she can do is ensure they will live together forever in Heaven. How many parents can do this? In movies where people get tortured, the last straw is always bringing in a loved one. The person being interrogated drops everything, forsakes all sworn obediences to governments and ideals to prevent even a hair on their special someone's head from being harmed. It seems unnatural for a child to die before their parent, and when it happens, it is a unique and raw kind of grief that doesn't ever truly end.
But we have this amazing woman to look to as an example of the courage we typically lack. We have Abraham, whom God asked to sacrifice his only son, the one he had been waiting for until his old age. Abraham, who in the picture of obedience had his knife to his son's throat when God told him to drop it. But the ultimate example, the best, is the Father Himself. After lovingly creating us in His image, we twisted the gift of free will into evil and hurt. To save us from ourselves, God sent us His Son, knowing He would give everything right down to His Body and His Blood. God didn't just watch His Son die...He watched Him suffer greatly. He let his Child suffer and die for a people who didn't even love Him back.
Very few of us are called to be martyrs. Even fewer, I would hope, are called to give their children away as such. But that doesn't let any of us off the hook. We are called to be just that obedient...if not unto death, then to the death of our own desires. We are called to great sacrifice...if not our physical lives, then a daily sacrifice of our former lives.
God sacrificed everything for you...weak, sinful, prideful, somehow loveable person that you are. What will you sacrifice today?
