The best mothers of all are Catholic mothers

Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article about how French moms  do a better job than American moms in teaching their children to behave properly.

This article, in turn, sparked many comments.  One writer said Italian-American moms are the best because they make great manicotti.

This debate has a certain degree of cultural interest, because beyond all cultural lessons are moral and spiritual lessons.

However, the nest moms of all are Catholic moms.  This is because Catholics moms do the best job in preparing their children for our real and eternal destiny: heaven.

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As the great Cardinal Mindszenty wrote:

The most important person on earth is a mother.

She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral.

She need not.

“She has built something more

magnificent than any cathedral –

a dwelling for an immortal soul,

the tiny perfection of her baby’s body…

“The angels have not been blessed with such a grace.

They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to

bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can.

Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature;

God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation…

“What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this; to be a mother?”

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Finally, Our Lady is the archetype of all mothers. Sometimes, a child senses her maternal goodness symbolically through the ambience of a pious family.

The affections of this family create an occasion for graces. The first experiences a child has with this affection lead him, though still young, to compare life within the family with that without. Thus, he affirms: “There is nothing like the family!”

He sees that the caresses and love he receives there exist nowhere else. All this affection can be summarized in one word: family.

While the word family represents many people, there is another word that signifies just one person, who is the quintessence of the family: mother. A good mother is the epitome of love and affection, and consequently goodness and mercy.

Through contact with his mother, the child begins to understand untiring goodness, grace, support and inexhaustible love. He experiences that maternal affection whereby a mother is never tired or bored of being with her child.

For a true mother, the joy of life consists in holding her child in her arms, putting him down to watch him run this way and that and being unceasingly riddled with her child’s questions.

He, who enters this world perceiving the joy that a good mother brings him, will eventually see that life can be very difficult. However, to the extent that he remembers his mother, he remembers the Paradise of his childhood.

With this remembrance, he conserves hope in the Celestial Paradise, where his Blessed Mother will welcome him.