Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
By Elizabeth Tarasevich
Having a daughter at the Catholic University of America makes for an easier pilgrimage than most, and an added incentive to join the other tens of thousands of Catholics who converged at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to hold vigil on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Having a mother who was one of the founders of the RI Right to Life, and among the earliest pro-lifers to hold vigil makes us a three-generation family of Catholic pro-life women. I feel especially blessed to stand between these two women in my dual role of mother and daughter; having learned from one, I pass on to the other and continue to learn from each as I go.
In the opening Mass at the Basilica, Cardinal DiNardo – along with 39 fellow bishops, and several hundred co-celebrants – welcomed over 10,000 worshipers to “our Mother’s house” to mark the solemn occasion in contemplation, prayer, and community. Listening to his homily, and to that of Cardinal-elect Dolan at the morning mass the following day, in a tightly-packed crowd of faithfully optimistic Catholics, it dawned on me that the house of our Mother is entirely appropriate as the beginning and end - the alpha and the omega – of each individual pilgrimage as it is to the Catholic Right to Life movement in its entirety. It is, indeed, inevitable that Mary the Mother of God is the source of maternal protection for our unborn, the source of maternal strength for those who choose to defend life, and the source of maternal love for those who seek her solace after some experience with the violent and nihilistic culture of death, either in abortion or its attendant corruption.
As we expect, our Mother’s house welcomes all, and is home to all who seek refuge there. But I think it is especially welcoming to women, who find there the powerful feminine presence of the Catholic Church and follow the model of universal maternal love. Catholic women, above all, should recognize the call – gently persistent and unchanging – of our Mother: the call to fulfill our womanhood in and through the service of love to those who need it greatly: our children and the children of others. Inherent in this call is the call to reject the selfish hedonism that characterizes the secular "feminist" credo of individual “rights” at the expense and to the detriment (even to the point of death) of others. The great perversion of modern feminism is the idea that self-love directed inward in any way supplants and is superior to genuine and altruistic love of another. In her model and her message, Our Blessed Mother reminds us that maternal love isn’t selfish, and is always projected outward away from self and towards others.
There is a great strength in this message: the force of feminine and maternal love is perhaps the greatest force, after the all-encompassing love of God, a woman will experience in her lifetime. Catholic women in our Mother’s house need to recognize and respond to this call. For our mothers, it will take an honest and critical renunciation and rejection of secular feminism. For our daughters, it will mean finding a path that is resistant to and divergent from the forces of the dominant and dead-end of American consumer culture. It requires a commitment to a life free of chemical-contraception, open to life and the joys of procreative sex as simply one aspect of married life and not the driving force of one’s physical, psychological or social well-being. Real feminine autonomy isn’t delivered through modern “medicine” which sees life-long chemically-dependent birth control as normative health care. Neither can it be purchased through material over-indulgence. Rather, it comes in the embrace of our true and rightful natures as the source of love for others, as daughters, sisters, and mothers.
We – Catholic women – have in Mary a wonderful model and source of strength and in each other can find the strength and fortitude to live lives that are true to our faith and to the teachings of the Church. What joy there is – or could be - in the harmony of life, love, and faith.
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Our Mother’s House: Reflections from the Vigil of Life
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Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
By Elizabeth Tarasevich
Having a daughter at the Catholic University of America makes for an easier pilgrimage than most, and an added incentive to join the other tens of thousands of Catholics who converged at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to hold vigil on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Having a mother who was one of the founders of the RI Right to Life, and among the earliest pro-lifers to hold vigil makes us a three-generation family of Catholic pro-life women. I feel especially blessed to stand between these two women in my dual role of mother and daughter; having learned from one, I pass on to the other and continue to learn from each as I go.
In the opening Mass at the Basilica, Cardinal DiNardo – along with 39 fellow bishops, and several hundred co-celebrants – welcomed over 10,000 worshipers to “our Mother’s house” to mark the solemn occasion in contemplation, prayer, and community. Listening to his homily, and to that of Cardinal-elect Dolan at the morning mass the following day, in a tightly-packed crowd of faithfully optimistic Catholics, it dawned on me that the house of our Mother is entirely appropriate as the beginning and end - the alpha and the omega – of each individual pilgrimage as it is to the Catholic Right to Life movement in its entirety. It is, indeed, inevitable that Mary the Mother of God is the source of maternal protection for our unborn, the source of maternal strength for those who choose to defend life, and the source of maternal love for those who seek her solace after some experience with the violent and nihilistic culture of death, either in abortion or its attendant corruption.
As we expect, our Mother’s house welcomes all, and is home to all who seek refuge there. But I think it is especially welcoming to women, who find there the powerful feminine presence of the Catholic Church and follow the model of universal maternal love. Catholic women, above all, should recognize the call – gently persistent and unchanging – of our Mother: the call to fulfill our womanhood in and through the service of love to those who need it greatly: our children and the children of others. Inherent in this call is the call to reject the selfish hedonism that characterizes the secular "feminist" credo of individual “rights” at the expense and to the detriment (even to the point of death) of others. The great perversion of modern feminism is the idea that self-love directed inward in any way supplants and is superior to genuine and altruistic love of another. In her model and her message, Our Blessed Mother reminds us that maternal love isn’t selfish, and is always projected outward away from self and towards others.
There is a great strength in this message: the force of feminine and maternal love is perhaps the greatest force, after the all-encompassing love of God, a woman will experience in her lifetime. Catholic women in our Mother’s house need to recognize and respond to this call. For our mothers, it will take an honest and critical renunciation and rejection of secular feminism. For our daughters, it will mean finding a path that is resistant to and divergent from the forces of the dominant and dead-end of American consumer culture. It requires a commitment to a life free of chemical-contraception, open to life and the joys of procreative sex as simply one aspect of married life and not the driving force of one’s physical, psychological or social well-being. Real feminine autonomy isn’t delivered through modern “medicine” which sees life-long chemically-dependent birth control as normative health care. Neither can it be purchased through material over-indulgence. Rather, it comes in the embrace of our true and rightful natures as the source of love for others, as daughters, sisters, and mothers.
We – Catholic women – have in Mary a wonderful model and source of strength and in each other can find the strength and fortitude to live lives that are true to our faith and to the teachings of the Church. What joy there is – or could be - in the harmony of life, love, and faith.