St. Clement of Rome, one of the Apostolic Fathers, reminded the Corinthians of the right way to live:

“Humility, too, and a complete absence of self-assertion were common to you all; you preferred to offer submission rather than extort it, and giving was dearer to your hearts than receiving.”

Early Christian Writings (Classics) (p. 23). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

My mother’s birthday was on January 15. If she had lived, she would have been 90.  I think of her often, and not always in the best terms. She was not a good mother, and she was a woman frustrated by limitations and expectations not her own. In many ways, she is the woman that pro-abortionists write about. The one whose children would have been better off if she had aborted them—what a twisted line of thought.  We have become a perverted society to believe that death (just death, not a death with hope of resurrection, a complete cessation) is better than life.  This blog post is my love letter to my mom, for never considering anything but life for me and my brother and sister. Thank you, Mom, for doing your best for us. I know you suffered for the choice. I pray that you find joy in Heaven, with the only perfect Father.

We live in a fallen world, made dark by modernist/postmodernist ideas of the self. These concepts turn us inward and turn us away from the duties and obligations of mature love. We are taught that emotions are truth and that our feelings are the measure of right and wrong.  Freud has taught us that everything is sex and thus made sex a battleground rather than a unifying force for family. My mother was a woman who had an independent life before she met my dad. She had a daughter from a previous relationship, a position as an advertising executive, and a modest modeling career. She married Dad after a whirlwind romance and was thrust into the 1950s mode of marriage. Dad quit her job for her and her life became tied to being a wife and mother. She worked quite a bit, and even started a couple of businesses, but all was subject to Dad’s needs and his life. She didn’t like children, and yet the main business of her life was caring for them. I understand her pain. I believe she truly suffered emotionally, but she made the commitment and did her level best to keep it.  I have been blessed to raise five children of my own and to see three of them form lovely families of their own, in different ways and with different struggles.  I have seen their faith grow in those struggles, and mine has grown through suffering with them. My life is a gift from God and I am grateful for it.  I think that I have much to learn from a woman whose nature was not submissive. She was not always happy, not always joyful, in her submission, but my mom submitted to God’s will, as best she could, and I owe her a lot for that lesson. May God teach me humility and submission to His will, rather than my own.