by Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Today on Mother’s Day, I will joyfully celebrate my mother and mother in law, two blessed women of faith, models of diligence in prayer, and fountains of love for their families. I will look to their examples and their wisdom when raising my own children, and I will thank God that I have a loving relationship with each of them.

But I also cannot ignore the reality that our relationships have had their ups and downs. I think back to my teenage and young adult years, how my mother and I sometimes did and did not communicate. I think about how I grew up in a completely different country and culture from the one my mother grew up in. I remember how much life I had to navigate on my own because my mother simply did not experience life in the same way, or even in the same language. She might have had advice to give me, but sometimes her only recourse for guiding me was to pray for me.

There were times when I felt lonely, especially when I lived and worked geographically far away from my parents in an age before smart phones and WiFi. There were so many steps in life I had to take on my own, situations I had to figure out for myself, decisions I had to make for myself. It sometimes overwhelmed me—until I realized something: I have another mother.

When I was twelve years old I asked my parents for a certain framed print of St. Mary, the Mother of God, to hang up in my room. It was for sale at my church’s book fair, and something about this particular piece of art drew me in. It isn’t an icon in the Orthodox tradition, but in this painting she is holding a peacefully sleeping Christ child nestled under her chin while she looks ahead and up, perhaps in prayer, perhaps in thanksgiving, perhaps in simple love and awe. Unlike the icons that rightfully adorn her with robes of a queen and angels surrounding her, this painting portrays her in peasant’s clothing. There isn’t even a halo around her or her Son. It could, in fact, be a painting of any mother with her child, but I knew it was her even before I learned of its title, “Madonna of the Streets,” the “Madonnina” by Italian artist Roberto Ferruzzi.

My parents obliged, and the print is still on the wall of my childhood bedroom, where it hangs on the wall beside my bed. I would look at it often, but beyond the written prayers in my Book of the Hours, I rarely asked the Mother of God for a personal intercession. This would change when I grew into adulthood. I don’t know exactly when I started doing so, but I distinctly remember walking into churches in Egypt during my numerous work visits, and after praying the Lords’ Prayer in front of the altar, walking over to the icon of the Mother of God, this time seated on her throne in all her regalia, her Son on her lap and both of them adorned with halos—and Christ’s halo, of course imprinted with the sign of the Cross. I’d touch my hand to the icon and whisper my prayers, asking her to intercede for me about different struggles I was facing and decisions I was making. I’d never hear a voice or a response, but somehow, I always felt peace.

The Mother of God is my mother, too. In the words of Origen of Alexandria, “Is it not the case that every one who is perfect lives himself no longer, [Galatians 2:20] but Christ lives in him; and if Christ lives in him, then it is said of him to Mary, Behold your son Christ.” When I joined the body of Christ at baptism, I “put on Christ.” I became “an heir.” (Galatians 3:27). And thus, the Mother of God became my mother also.  On the cross, as our Lord Jesus Christ was dying, he looked to His mother and to his disciple, John, and said, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” (John 19:25-29). In these words, Christ was not giving John a mother and His mother a new son. He was offering His holy Mother as a mother to the Church, His bride. On the Cross, He not only gave us His life, He gave us His mother. And when I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, reach my earthly mother, I could always reach my other mother, who prays for me too.

I think about this as I consider my friends and loved ones who spend this Mother’s Day with pain. The friends whose earthly mothers have passed away, no longer there to embrace them, advise them or listen to them. The friends whose relationships with their mothers are fraught with difficult memories. The friends who have no relationship with their mothers—either of their own initiative or of their mothers’. The friends who never grew up with their mother at all, or lost her at an early age.

Today I would like to remind these friends, and all those in pain on Mother’s Day, that you, too, have another mother. And while having the Mother of God for their mother does not take the pain away, it might help to know that the Virgin Mary lived in pain, too. She gave birth not in a warm home but in a manger (Luke 2:7). From the eighth day she knew that a sword would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:35). She traveled with Him to Egypt during days when travel was dangerous (Matthew 2:13). And as she looked upon the Cross, the litany of the Ninth Hour in the Book of Hours imagines her saying “The world rejoices at the acceptance of salvation, but my heart burns when I look at your crucifixion which You endured for the sake of all; Oh My Son and My God.” For my friends in pain, it might help to know that the model for the Madonna of the Streets was not a mother with her child, but in fact an older sister holding her baby brother. Those who give birth to us are not the only ones who can mother us.

Today I celebrate the women who mothered me and my husband. But I also celebrate and give thanks for my other mother. My other mother also offers me wisdom, guidance, and prayers, and she offers me those while being seated at the right hand of her Son, Jesus Christ. I am so blessed to be in this most loving embrace.

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