Above all, during the months immediately preceding the birth of her child, the mother should keep close to God, of whom the infant she bears within her is the image, the handiwork, the gift and the child. She should be for her offspring, as it were, a temple, a sanctuary, an altar, a tabernacle. In short, her life should be, so to speak, the life of a living sacrament, a sacrament in act, burying herself in the bosom of that God who has so truly instituted it and hallowed it, so that there she may draw that energy, that enlightening, that natural and supernatural beauty which He wills, and wills precisely by her means, to impart to the child she bears and to be born of her.
-- St. Marie Azélie Guérin Martin,
mother of St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Happy Mother's Day to all who fulfill that role!
Image source 1: Roger Van Der Weyden, The Visitation, detail (15th c.), https://www.kellybagdanov.com/2017/12/10/van-der-weydens-visitation/
Image source 2: St. Thérèse of Lisieux with her parents, https://fatima.org/news-views/catholic-apologetics-114/
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