Reflection / Katie Rahman

From doubter to daughter: When Mary became my mother

For much of my life, I had a troubled relationship with the Blessed Virgin. I was of the opinion that if I, too, had been born without original sin, I would be sinless and life would be so much easier. So, God, why her and why not me?

Like a child who thought her parents loved the other sibling better, I felt envy and resentment, not toward God, but toward the object of his saving grace, Mary. My regular prayer life invoked the Holy Trinity. Mary was conspicuously left out.

Then one day, I received a phone call bearing news that distressed me to the point that I was immediately physically ill. Cold sweats. Uncontrolled shaking. I had to leave work. I called my future husband and told him I needed him to meet me at his apartment, which was close by.

He helped me in the door, up the stairs and to the couch. Fetal position, labored breathing, I continued to shake. He said to me, “Let’s pray a rosary.” I nodded, and he quickly got one for each of us. With what strength I had, I pressed the beads to my lips and hoped heaven would hear my whispered prayers.

“Hail Mary, full of grace … holy Mary, Mother of God …,” and I felt her presence. She was praying the prayers with me. By the third decade, I remember that I started nodding to her. She had wordlessly conveyed to me that everything was going to be OK. I felt her consolation, warmth filling me. I immediately stopped shaking, smiled and sat up. I took a deep breath and finished my prayers. I looked at my future husband and said, “It’s going to be OK.”

My relationship with Mother Mary changed after that. Just like the child Jesus portrayed in the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help—who runs so quickly to his mother after the archangels show him the instruments of his scourging and crucifixion that he almost loses his sandal—when I am in distress, running toward her consolation is my only thought.

I have come to realize that when Mary said “yes” to becoming the mother of God, she was also saying “yes” to being my mother, our mother. I wonder if, like Jesus, she too received a vision—a vision of all the souls who would be damned without her Son.

I wonder if she saw me and was willing to have her heart pierced for my sake. No longer someone for me to resent and envy, I love her more each day as I continue to discover all the ways she has already loved me—just like a true mother.
 

(Katie Rahman is a member of St. Patrick Parish in Terre Haute. The feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help was on June 27.) †