My mother passed away some 18 years ago. Being a priest-son, I had a very special relationship with her. It always intrigued me why so many priests have a special relationship with their mothers. Is it, so mothers help them to be more compassionate?
I don’t want to idealize my relationship with her. However, when I had to make some important decisions in my life, she was ready to support me even when others were doubting the rightness of the direction I was taking. She would assure me saying “Whenever you pray you cannot go far wrong.”
At other times I felt upset by, what I called, her over-anxiety. It caused us to be stubborn and at non-speaking terms for a while. Afterwards, when we talked it out and I voiced to her that I felt she was over-anxious about me, she would quietly tell me “you don’t understand!”
Recently, I may have received some insight into what she was saying.
I was reading an article by an Italian Salesian and mystic, Blessed Giuseppe Quadrio 1921-1963, who wrote: “A woman’s love always determines a man’s way of loving. She is the quiet educator of his manhood.”
Reading this, I think I have begun to understand something about my mother’s overanxiety. Her overanxiety about me, which I interpreted as a negative rejection of me, was her way of trying to help me positively.
You can see this also in the relationship of married couples. The house is for a woman like her dress, namely, it is her way of presenting herself. When she asks her husband, for instance, to oil the squeaky door, to take the garbage out or to take care of repairs in the house, it triggers in her a greater openness to love him when he needs her love. When, on the other hand, he does not do these things, she finds herself unable to give herself to him when he needs her and thus, she may resort to nagging him.
It is Christmas time, a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus who is born of the virgin Mary. The Gospel of John says about this coming “God so much love the world that he gave his only son” (John 3:16)
Do we understand this love of God for us? Do we know how to love him? Do we know how to love Jesus, …this Christmas, …when receiving communion?
The text of Blessed Giuseppe Quadrio “A woman’s love always determines a man’s way of loving. She is the quiet educator of his manhood” will help us to understand how to love Jesus. Is there anyone who could love him better than his Mother Mary?
At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel proclaimed her “full of grace” and said that she was “conceived by the Holy Spirit”. When the Church, every year on the 8th of December, celebrates “her Immaculate Conception”, she confesses that God prepared our Mother Mary in a very special way to be the mother of his son.
St Bernadette Soubirous, an uneducated girl, who knew nothing about the church’s proclamation earlier, related a few years after the dogma was proclaimed, that in the vision a lady dressed in white identified herself as “the Immaculate Conception”.
Therefore, Scripture and the Church confess, that more than anyone else, our Mother Mary knows how to love Jesus. This, I believe, is the reason why Jesus on the cross gives his mother to his beloved disciple and his beloved disciple to his mother.
In this time of Advent and the feast of Christmas, we should rejoice not only that God so much loved the world that he gave his only son, but also that he has given us through his mother someone who loves us with the love of God himself to help us how to love him.
Let us therefore pray: “O mother Mary, teach me to love and care for you, thus leading me to the treasure of your womb, to Jesus who is my only happiness and joy!”
Question: Do you ever ask Mary to teach you how to love Jesus when he comes to you at Christmas and every day in the Eucharist?
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Fr Guido Gockel MHM
A member of St Joseph’s Missionary Society of Mill Hill, headquartered near London, Father Guido was ordained a priest in 1969. Shortly after ordination, he was sent to Malaysia (Sarawak) where he served as a missionary for 18 years.
While on a vacation to Sabah, he was introduced to a group of young people who had become involved in the Charismatic Movement (CCR). This experience helped him to be instrumental in introducing CCR to Miri, Sarawak, where he was assigned to a mission outpost.
Since his first missionary stint of seven years in the early 70’s, he has been back to Malaysia three more postings, and numerous short visits. He has acquired a basic knowledge of “Melayu pasar” and other languages of Sarawak
Catholic Sabah has the privilege of being acquainted with Fr Guido, who has been generous in giving his time to write for a year under the column titled “I’m on My Way” since the launching of the Catholic Sabah online portal in 2020.
With a little encouragement, Fr Guido has agreed to continue to write, and thus Catholic Sabah decided to upload his writings, once every month, in both English and Bahasa Melayu. Father is open to questions, to offer further discussion/explanation. He can be reached through email or whatsapp @ frguidomhm@gmail.com.
