A Tribute to Mothers
Not only is May the month we celebrate Mother’s Day in the U.S., but more importantly, it is also our Blessed Mother’s month.
Fittingly, May ends with the Feast of the Visitation, when the Virgin Mary, in her generosity and humility, left her home to help her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth’s response to Mary was gratitude for her charity. Mary’s humble response to the opportunity to serve was to gift us with one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Christendom: The Magnificat.
Mary, perfect in every way, serves as a remarkable inspiration to women in every age. She’s the ultimate model of holy womanhood, humility, and generosity, and I see her reflection most clearly in the women God has placed in my own life.
From my birthmother and my adoptive mother, I have inherited two incredible examples of womanly strength, selflessness, and sacrificial love. My birthmother made the courageous decision to give me life, entrusting me to the world with a kind of silent heroism. Her “yes” was a brave and beautiful act of love that I will never forget. My mother, the one who raised me, made her own ‘yes,’ one that echoes Mary’s. While I would never compare myself to Christ, I do see in my mother the same open-hearted embrace of a calling not of her own making. She said yes to a child she did not conceive, but whom she claimed fully as her own. Her motherhood was born not of biology but of love, and it has shaped everything I am.
And then there is my wife, the woman who quite literally saved my life the night we met. I was in a dark place, far from the Church, unsure of who I was or where I was going. She asked me three simple questions:
“Are you Catholic?”
“Yes.”
“Do you go to Mass?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
She gently told me to go to Mass the next morning. That conversation changed everything. The next weekend I went to confession. Six months later, we were engaged.
Since then, I’ve watched her give herself completely for our family. From working long hours in New York City — pregnant, commuting and dropping off our daughters at daycare — to becoming a full-time, stay-at-home mom, nurturing, teaching and shaping our children with gentleness and faith, Elise has lived her vocation with fierce love and quiet strength.
Her motherhood is a daily act of charity, a visible echo of Mary’s hidden holiness. She is strong in her faith and unafraid to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompting.
And through this faith and connection to the Holy Spirit, she encouraged me to leave my former job and take the leap to chase my passion. We had no money. She was pregnant with our third child. I was afraid but she believed in God’s plan, and that belief carried us.
Today, by God’s grace, I lead Knights of Columbus Charitable Fund, the largest Catholic donor-advised fund in the country. But she is the one who heard God first and said yes. She doesn’t see herself as a role model, but she is to our daughters, to me, and to so many others. Her life is a living witness to the kind of faith that transforms families, builds communities, and furthers the mission of the Church.
This May, as we honor mothers and women of faith, let us look to Mary, the first disciple, the generous servant, the Blessed Mother of God. And let us give thanks for the women in our lives who follow her lead, not in perfection, but in love.
