A GRAMMAR OF THE MATERNAL

On this first day of the civil year, the liturgy celebrates the divine motherhood of Mary. But is there an alphabet that defines the mother, is there a grammar of the maternal? Certainly. Looking at Mary, the icon of every mother, we can speak first of all of waiting. The mother waits, knows how to wait, does not let herself be overwhelmed by time, does not allow time to dominate that glimmer, that opening that goes beyond the present and opens to the hope of tomorrow, extraordinarily summarized in the icon of the son. In waiting, a mother is in a mysterious relationship with the life that is taking shape within her; Waiting establishes a relationship with this still-hidden otherness. During gestation, the other takes shape within her, but she ignores its face and what it is like. Hence a second aspect: patience. A Patient person is not one who is resigned, but one who knows how to generate, even through their own suffering, a different, new, unprecedented time. The mother’s patience knows how to suffer the absence of one who is late in coming. But by suffering, she generates that opportune time, as I was saying, so that the child can arrive, express himself, and even give himself. A child always comes into the world as transcendence, that is, a reality that always goes beyond, that beyond which is the place of the other (Illiceto). If you like, the strange thing is that during waiting, the child is already present, a presence-absence, a hidden but real presence. Little by little, that absence begins to exist. All this makes us understand an important thing: otherness is hosted before it is even encountered. A Mother, then, is the one who hosts, and hospitality is first and foremost welcoming the stranger who cannot always stay in the place offered but who will need new horizons in which to be born in his uniqueness and beauty. This is also why the child passes through the mother, and a mother knows very well that she cannot transform that unique bond into a chain. Massimo Recalcati, in The Hands of the Mother, writes that the mother is hospitality without property, and that what characterizes her is loss. This was Mary, whom faith proclaims Mother of God (Theotokos). And herein lies her uniqueness, yes, because Mary alone generated in the flesh the Son of God.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey