Happy Birthday, Mama Mary + Musical Monday: Ave Maria (Schubert)

Today is Mama Mary's birthday.  My gift at Mass this morning to Our Lady was not what I had hoped to give.  I could barely take a moment to pay attention because my (almost) two year old was antsy and made many spontaneous and loud outbursts throughout.  The other two were pretty good, but added their own small disturbances during just about every moment when the two year seemed to calm down for a brief time.

In short, I was rather humiliated and devastated.  The girls and I have been trying to make it to morning Mass a few times a week and they have been, well, kids, but today I wanted to crawl into a hole.  And perhaps I should have just left instead of creating a disturbance for others, but I sat there while Ava crawled all over me talking or trying to use the small pencils in the pew to write in the music issues and thought, " I need Jesus every bit as much as any of these other people here."  I wish I could apologize to the others who attended Mass for the noise and random outbursts, but instead I just said a prayer for them that God would bless them because not a single person said anything unkind or gave me a look (that I saw anyway).

found on Pinterest here

After Mass, Ava was being stubborn and refused to follow me to the car.  I had my hands full with our church bag and the diaper bag and a motherly woman came and scooped her up and said to her, "You are two, aren't you?  Let's help Mommy because she has a baby in her tummy that makes her tired."  I could have cried right there.



My gift for Mary was pathetic this morning and I knew it, but it was literally everything I had.  And she took my gift of nothing, and gave me love and encouragement from a "mother".  This woman was Our Lady to me this morning.  She was understanding, loving, and completely nonjudgmental.



Happy Birthday, Mama Mary, and thank you for teaching me that motherhood truly is about simply loving and giving of yourself, even when there doesn't seem to be much to give. In honor of the feast, I'm sharing Schubert's Ave Maria as sung by Andrea Bocelli.  Enjoy!