Last year, precisely on 8 December, the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy launched an interesting initiative. Through its prefect, Cardinal Hummes, the Congregation was looking for “consecrated feminine souls” who willingly want to offer Eucharistic adoration for the sanctification of priests. In this way, they would become spiritual mothers of priests.
Strictly speaking, this is not a new initiative. Pope John Paul II established Mater Ecclesiae, a cloistered convent within the Vatican in which contemplative nuns pray continually for the pope and his Petrine ministry. In establishing Mater Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II was highlighting the crucial significance of silent prayer and hidden sacrifice as the right hand of ordained ministry. The Benedictine prioress of the Mater Ecclesiae community, Mother Maria Sofia Cicchetti, confirmed this when she said: “We know that we have been called to become spiritual mothers in our silent and hidden life. Priests and seminarians have a privileged place as our spiritual sons, as do all of those who turn to us asking for support in their priestly life and ministry, in the trials and anxieties they encounter.”
Priests need spiritual continual support in their delicate yet invaluable ministry. Spiritual mothers can be instrumental and vital in giving this essential help to God’s anointed ones. From the spiritual mother’s lips and hearts, a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, praise, petition, and reparation, will be raised to God, ceaselessly and from every corner of the globe, with the principal intention of awakening a sufficient number of holy vocations to the priestly state as well as strengthening those who are already working in the Lord’s vineyard.
The initiative suggests that on Mary’s example, women can spiritually adopt priests so as to help them live with commitment and enthusiasm their self-offering, prayer and penance. Such a campaign brings to the fore the intrinsic connection between the Eucharist and the ministerial priesthood. In adoring the Eucharist and offering herself as a victim of love for priests, each spiritual mother becomes like the Virgin Mary who accompanied her Son Jesus and the community of those who believed in Him throughout her entire life. The silent and hidden adoration of a spiritual mother for her spiritual child’s reparation of faults and sanctification is highly favoured by God. No wonder than that such an initiative has been approved by Pope Benedict XVI who imparted his apostolic blessing “as a seal of that hope.”
As a priest, I highly encourage those women who feel called by God to embark on this initiative not to lose heart but step forward with courage and trust in the Lord. In the Church’s history other women were courageous enough to offer themselves as victims of love to God for priests’ sanctification. For instance, St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, was aware of the tremendous need of prayer for all priests, particularly the lukewarm ones. In a letter to her sister Céline she wrote, “Let us live for souls, let us be apostles, let us save above all the souls of priests... Let us pray and suffer for them and on the last day Jesus will be grateful” (St Thérèse of Lisieux, Letter n. 94).
Blessed are those priests whose spiritual mothers pray and listen to their concerns. They become so empowered in their vocation that they are ready to stay in this world to win over as many souls as possible to Christ. In this perspective, the words of the Holy Curé of Ars, Patron of Parish Priests, are more than appropriate. “If I already had one foot in Heaven and I was told to return to the earth to work to convert sinners, I would gladly return. And if, to do this, it were necessary that I remain on earth until the end of the world, always rising at midnight and suffering as I suffer, I would consent with all my heart” (Bro. Athanase, Procès de l’Ordinaire, p. 883).
For more information visit www.clerus.org
May God bless you and your loved ones as you glorify Him through your womanhood by accepting to become our spiritual mothers, priestly mothers.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann