Culture of Life Meditation: Motherhood

"Whereas few men are called upon to become priests, all women, without exception, are called upon to be mothers...In her book, The Eternal Woman, Gertrude von le Fort writes: 'To be a mother, to feel maternally, means to turn especially to the helpless, to incline lovingly and helpfully to every small and weak thing upon this earth.'

The diabolical work that has taken place since the legalization of abortion is that it has destroyed, in those tragic women who have allowed their child to be murdered, their sense for the sacredness of maternity. Abortion not only murders the innocent; it spiritually murders women. Those who devote their loving attention to these victims of our decadent society know that the wound created in their souls is so deep that only God's grace can heal it. The very soul of the woman is meant to be maternal. Once this sublime calling has been trampled upon, such women become 'unsexed'; they are 'sick unto death.'

Maternity is a sublime calling, and even though man's ungrateful heart often forgets his mother's sufferings to bring him into the world and her endless devotion to bring him up, it is well known that when a man faces death on the battlefield, his last words, his last thoughts are often directed to his mother. Dying soldiers scream, 'Mother.' "

~Alice von Hildebrand, The Privilege of Being a Mother

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