Never Too Much Love

Fr. Jim Phalan, C.S.C., contemplates how motherhood is a tender but powerful channel of the Lord's love for each of us.

These months of the liturgical year are laced with Marian feasts. From the Assumption (August 15), we move to the Queenship of Mary (August 22), to the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8), to the Holy Name of Mary (September 12), to Our Lady of Sorrows (Sept. 15). Then, because we celebrate October 7 as the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, the whole month of October is one big observance of “Rosary Month.”

Isn’t that a bit much? Overdoing it? … Some might think so.

But is there ever too much love around? That’s really what all this “Marian Feast” stuff that we Catholics do is really about: LIVING LOVE. It would be great if all our Protestant friends – and the whole world – would understand that!

In the first place is GOD’S LOVE FOR US! As Pope Francis likes to say, “God gave us Mary because He knows we need a mother.” The Second Vatican Council said this in more “formal” terms: “The Blessed Virgin's salutary influence on men originates not in any inner necessity but in the disposition of God” (Lumen Gentium, #60). He wants to shower His love on the world in so many ways all the time!

MOTHERHOOD itself is such a tender but powerful channel of the Lord’s love for each of us! Mary, the Mother of all, the Mother of all mothers is a sacramental SIGN OF LOVE. In one of my favorite poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins writes,

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.

She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe.
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, "The Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe")

LOVE! GOD’S LOVE!

There can’t be too much of it and that is what our stressed and tired world needs now. Further, the Incarnation of Christ – which happened in and through our Mother Mary – means that now and forever this love is always there for us to receive! Jesus and Mary stand with open arms bestowing it to those who believe and receive it! THEN WE TOO ARE TO BE CONDUITS OF LOVE!

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There can't be too much of God's love, and that is what our stressed and tired world needs now. #catholicmom

CatholicMom, this mission we all share with Our Lady, is here to help all Moms receive and be the channels of love they are and are always meant to be! Now at this crucial time, when it is so easy to sink into the negative, we want to call everyone from fear into TRUST IN JESUS so that WE WILL BE FILLED WITH THIS LOVE TO OVERFLOWING.

Holy Mother, WE CELEBRATE YOU! KEEP THE LOVE FLOWING NOW!