Behind every priest there is a mother; a mother who begot him, who nourished him, who taught him to take his first steps and who finally gave him to the Lord. All this makes the mother of a priest endowed with a particular dignity; for she is not the mother of just any man, but the mother of a man who upon ascending the altar surpasses in dignity all the kings of the earth and the angels of heaven because she works in the person of Christ.
This dignity of the mother of the priest can be seen in a particular way in a pious tradition that takes place on the day of her son’s ordination. When a priest is ordained, the bishop anoints his hands with holy chrism as a sign of his peculiar participation in the priesthood of Christ. Then those hands anointed with the holy chrism are cleansed with a purificator made of linen cloth which is given to the mother of the new priest. The mother of the priest must keep that purificator until the day of her death to be buried with it. According to this ancient custom when the mother appears before the divine tribunal and Christ questions her saying, “I have given you life. What have you given me?” She will hand over the purificator and answer: “I have given you my son as a priest”. And thanks to this Christ will have a particular mercy on her.
All that was said referred to carnal motherhood. It is evident that not every woman can be the carnal mother of a priest, only those privileged women that God chose from eternity to bring his priests into the world. However, we must say that there is also another motherhood that is within the reach of every woman, spiritual motherhood. Through prayer every woman can beget and sustain priests. Every priestly vocation has its origin in prayer: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Lk 10:3). In this way Christ ordained it; and just as the priest has the power to transubstantiate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, so every woman can transubstantiate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In a similar way, every woman can, by her prayer, transform a simple man into a priest.
For this reason, it is through prayer that every woman can beget priests, thus becoming the mother of so many priests. A clear example of this was St. Therese of the Child Jesus, of whom we can say with total certainty that she was the mother of many priests, she dedicated her whole life to pray for priests. The saint said that she had entered Carmel “to save souls and, above all, to pray for priests”.
In the letters she wrote to her sister Celina, she constantly insisted on this idea: “I feel that Jesus is asking both of us to quench his thirst by giving him souls, especially the souls of priests”; “Celina, let us pray for priests, yes, let us pray for them! Let us consecrate our lives to them”; “We have to forge this year many priests who know how to love Jesus!”; “Dear Celina, what I have to tell you is always the same: let us pray for priests.”
Each one of you is also called to become a mother of priests, whether you are married, single or a religious. To beget and sustain priests through prayer is the noblest action to which a woman can give herself. While it is true that with a spiritual motherhood at the moment of death you will not have a purifier to give to Christ, on the other hand, you will be able to say with full confidence in divine mercy: “I have dedicated myself to pray for your priests”.
Fr. Francisco Javier de Igarzábal, IVE