Food for thought

May 12, 2017

Mothers “ought to be listened to more,” said Pope Francis in a catechesis on the family at a general audience Jan 7, 2015.

“Despite being highly lauded from a symbolic point of view - many poems, many beautiful things said poetically of her - the mother is rarely listened to or helped in daily life, rarely considered central to society in her role,” the Pope continued.

Pope Francis spoke of his own mother and how much she loved and worked for him and his siblings: “She gave us so much.”

“Mothers,” he said, “are the strongest antidote to the spread of self-centred individualism” and a “society without mothers would be a dehumanised society, for mothers are always, even in the worst moments, witnesses of tenderness, dedication and moral strength.”

Mothers often are the ones who pass on the faith, the Pope said, and teach children their first prayers and first acts of devotion.

“Dearest mothers, thank you, thank you for what you are in your family and for what you give to the Church and the world.”