A mother was created by God to love, to give birth, to nurture and to be a catalyst of formation for her offspring, and it is through her loving and caring for that child that the child becomes the source of salvation for the mother.

From the very moment a woman conceives a child, her life changes—physically, mentally, psychologically and spiritually – and it will never be the same.

The woman’s body becomes the dwelling place for the foetus and expands to accommodate the foetus. She prepares for this child – thinking of the child, talking to the child and praying that the child will be healthy. She is just not the person she was before, and she will never be. Her focus shifts from herself to her child.

Writer Henri Nouwen suggests that “every human being has a great yet unknown gift—to care, to be compassionate to become present to the other, to listen, to bear and to receive.”

It is my belief that within the heart of a mother this gift becomes known and embraced. The heart of a mother recognises what is finest in someone and encourages it to bloom.

The heart of a mother sets aside her own concerns to attend to the needs of another. The heart of a mother loves and loves and loves even more.

Of course, we know that not all mothers love and care like this, but the very reason that it seems so abhorrent to us when we hear that a mother has killed or injured her offspring is that this is abnormal behaviour and, as mothers, we find it difficult to understand.

A mother with a broken heart

Sacrifice is at the centre of motherly love—doing without. One mother shared with me that she would go to the city to get herself a new dress and leave without it because she had reasoned that it was too expensive and she really did not need it but, without a second thought, she would purchase a dress for her daughter and shoes for her son even without being asked.

I never saw my mother going to the cinema or a party. Her joy was being at home with her nine children.

Mothers know that as soon as the baby whimpers, no matter where they are they hear the cry and they drop everything and run to the baby to take care of his or her needs, even though they may be drooping with tiredness after many sleepless nights.

It is as though when a mother holds her child for the first time in her arms, a special gift of love is poured into her heart—a love that she has never before known. There is not a more beautiful and tender sight than that of a mother with her baby nestled at her breast.

I believe that this is the closest we human beings come to the experience of the unconditional, embracing love of God for his children.

Another mother shared her joy at the birth of her first daughter: “Taking care of her and loving her made me realise that my true calling was to be a mother.”

The birth of her second daughter made her joy complete—“Being a mother is perhaps the hardest earthly job that there is, but there is nothing that can ever change what my girls and I have always been to each other.” As the writer Lin Yulang says, “0f all the rights of woman the greatest is to be a mother.”

And, of course, when the joys of motherhood fade there is the utter joy of grandchildren who stimulate within the human heart its capacity to keep expanding.

As mothers, we look to Mary the mother of our Saviour, who loved and gave herself totally to her son- walking with him to Calvary and holding his dead body in her arms.

Mary knows what it was to be a mother with a broken heart. She understands our pain, our love as mothers and she walks with us, ever teaching us how to turn the pain into love - “Mother of God he broke thy heart that it might wider be, that in the vastness of its love there might be room for me …”