For My Fellow Catholic Moms Who Are Barely Holding On

Hillary Ibarra honors the struggling mothers who keep striving to be faithful.

If you feel like it is a struggle to live your faith amid life’s adversity, then you are my soul sister. I know how it feels to believe you are incapable of being who Jesus wants you to be in your current circumstances. I also know well the days when it is difficult to say prayers because a hope famine has struck. 

My life got upended more than a year and a half ago. The progress toward healing and rebuilding is desperately slow. I feel I am jumping hurdles continually and falling on my face more times than I clear them, and I suspect many Catholic moms in a myriad of challenging circumstances feel as I do: barely holding on to their marriages, to their family life, to their health, and to the hope that a redeeming path is leading them forward. 

My fellow struggling moms and I battle grievous mental and emotional turmoil and agonize about how it is affecting our children. We apologize often to our children when heartbreak or frustration overwhelm us and we fall apart, and we comfort ourselves that if our children can witness how we overcome our circumstances by God’s grace, then they will know deep in their souls that they can overcome whatever challenges they face in their lives with God’s help, too. And then all this suffering is not in vain.  

And speaking of suffering, we try to offer it up each morning for our children and for our spouses, whether we are married or divorced, for we understand that when we unite it to Christ, it is indeed redemptive and able to bear fruit of restoration and, dare we say, joy. Someday. When we pray, we gather more hope than we realize. 

I See Many Women Soldiering On

There are many women in my local Catholic community who inspire me and wrap my heart in comfort because I see them soldiering on and still blessing, guiding, and giving to their families and to their communities despite great suffering. I see the divorced mother who must balance work and her children’s activities, who attends Mass faithfully, and is heavily involved in her parish even though she lacks the support of a spouse as she juggles responsibilities. I see the single older woman who had to leave her husband during her pregnancy decades ago and who now brings so much consolation to others by leading prayer ministries within her parish.

And I have a dear friend, married, who has brought her children — both long-serving altar servers — to Mass by herself for several years, ensuring they received the Sacraments. She taught Children’s Faith Formation for a long time, too. And I see the mothers, who like me, mourn the reality that their adult children are not participating in Mass; we pray God guides them and keeps them safe, inspires them to still pray, and brings them home.  

None of these women quit their faith when the path became heartbreaking, lonely, and tremendously challenging and exhausting. They kept going, kept giving, and kept encouraging just by keeping the faith in tough times. We need these women to demonstrate that it can be done — and in a mighty way — with, in, and through Jesus. 

I Struggle Beside You in Spirit

To all my fellow Catholic moms who are barely hanging on but keep moving forward in prayer, I see you, and I find your faith beautiful and inspiring as I struggle beside you in spirit, united in Christ and to Christ on the Cross. I pray that we hold in our hearts the profound truth that the greatest act of empathy for us and for all people was accomplished by Christ on the Cross.  

Our Lord sees us, too. 

Pray With Me

Lord Jesus, please forgive our sins and give us Your peace.
Let not our hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,
but give us Your courage, guidance, healing, and humility in all circumstances.
Amen.

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Copyright 2025 Hillary Ibarra
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