I grew up with a
“wire monkey” mother [1]
—actually worse than a wire monkey because she was hostile and cruel—and my life has
been a mess. Anger. Rage. Eating disorders. Pornography. Drugs. Alcohol. Failed
relationships with boyfriends. I’ve seen your website, and I want to make it up to
God. I want to become Catholic. But Jesus tells us to love him, and I don’t know what
love is. How can I love him if I never knew love from my mother, and if I never loved
anyone, not even myself?
 sympathize with you because I’ve heard
it and seen it before. You are one among many. Millions of children have been raised in
darkness and chaos, and millions are being raised even now in darkness and chaos. Their
pain and despair fill the world with spiritual agony.
Nevertheless, when Jesus calls anyone to Him,
He does not ask for something impossible. Yes, it can seem impossible that those who have
grown up with anger, hate, and cruelty could manage to find love in their hearts. But it’s
not impossible. Jesus does not play games with us, taunting us with impossible lures. So
where is the hope?
The hope has been around for ages, but Saint
Louis Marie de Montfort spoke about it with clear confidence: To Jesus through
Mary.
Mary’s Smile
 Yes, Mary. If you want to see motherly love,
look at any icon of her. As she holds her Son, she smiles with a smile of tender love.
It’s a gentle smile, and it’s a smile of love for God. It’s not a dramatic
celebrity-show-your-teeth appeal to be noticed. It’s a quiet smile.
 Now,
someone might say, “Well, icons are human creations, so what else can be expected other
than human sentimentality?”
Well, consider then the image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe. She has the same quiet, gentle smile that can be found on icons through the ages.
And this image was made supernaturally.
But this isn’t the end of the
story.
The Cross
What makes Mary’s smile so unique and
divine? Unlike mere human sentimentality, Mary’s smile reaches to the depths of
sorrow and suffering, and it reaches to the heights of love. Mary’s smile, her smile
of love for God, is also her love for the Cross.
When Jesus was born, He was born to be
crucified. Mary knew that. And Mary knew that her heart, the heart that loved her Son,
was meant to be pierced with sorrow.
This all means that when you look to Mary
for comfort, as serious Catholics have done through the ages, you are looking at the
fullness of love. It’s a love that is far more than mere sentimentality because it is
a love that understands suffering. It’s also a love that
transcends everything human, even race.
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Jesus and Mary were
Jewish. Christianity began as the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, but it spread
to embrace all the gentiles; that is, all cultures and all races. Even in the divine
image of Mary from Guadalupe, Mary is depicted as a Jewish woman wearing Jewish
clothing. Therefore, to depict Mary as Black, or Asian, or Mexican is blasphemy:
a liberal “politically correct” but absolutely absurd denial of
truth. |
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This Is Love
So what does this mean to you? Well,
remember, To Jesus through Mary. Even if your mother was an emotionally lifeless
wire monkey, and even if your mother was cruel and far worse than a wire monkey and made
your life a chaos of suffering, loving Jesus is not a task that is impossible for you. If
you turn in prayer to Mary and let her gentle smile of love for God and love for the Cross
touch your heart, your journey to Jesus can begin. Look at her and say, “This is love.”
Then say, “Teach me your love that I might love.”
One Critical Element
Be advised, though,
of one critical element to this process. You must desire to let Mary’s love pierce your
heart. You must desire it more than anything else. You must desire it more than
anger and hate. You must desire it more than
gluttony, tobacco,
alcohol, and pornography and
masturbation. Those sins have been your friends and protection all your life. If you
cling to them, you will remain stuck in chaos. Now, if you want to learn how to love, it
will take courage to renounce your old comforts. All the pain and suffering of your life
is not an obstacle to love for Jesus. The only obstacle is your refusal to desire the
highest desire of all: absolute love for God.
So look at Mary’s smile, and say, “This is
love.” And when any thought or image of your old ways arises as a
temptation, say, “This is wrong. This is not love. I
renounce it. Let it go.”
It’s constant, hard work, but if you desire
it you can succeed.
Notes
1.
The term “wire monkey” derives from the psychological experimentation done by the
American psychologist Harry Frederick Harlow in the 1950s. His experiments on rhesus
monkeys included creating inanimate wire surrogate “mothers” for the rhesus infants in
an attempt to investigate the process of infant-mother bonding.
Related Pages
How to become
a good Catholic despite emotional wounds from an abusive mother
Depression
because of a narcissistic mother
Distancing
from a narcissistic mother
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