We are completing a monumental week for mothers who shaped great saints. There is Blanche of Castile, the mother of King Saint Louis IX of France. Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine. And the third amazing mother I'll leave anonymous until the end.
Blanche of Castile
She told her son, the 12-year-old anointed King of France, I would rather have you dead at my feet than know you committed a mortal sin. King Louis, cared for the poor and invited them to dine with him in the palace and washed their feet like Christ. He built the incredibly beautiful Saint Chapelle in Paris to house the relic of the Crown of Thorns and the true Cross of Jesus. He went on crusade to the Holy Land to safeguard the Holy places for Christian pilgrims. He was a faithful husband and father of eleven children. Saint Louis, Missouri and Saint Louis Cathedral are named in his honor. Model of good government and true disciple of Christ.
Saint Monica
Any parent who has a wayward child should look to long-suffering Saint Monica, whose dissolute son, drank, stole, led an adulterous life and fathered a child with his mistress, followed a strange Persian Philosopher, Mani, who claimed there was good and evil in the world because there was a God of Good and a God of Evil. His mother prayed and begged and pursued him even when he escaped from her at night by ship. She followed him from Africa to Rome to Milan, praying and imploring all the way. Finally, at age 33, he gave in, was converted and baptized, became a priest and bishop, and the greatest teacher of the faith in the first millennium of Christianity.
And finally ...
Of course, the world’s greatest mother is Mary and she produced the most beautiful, holy and influential man of all ages, Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Mothers, there is no greater calling! May God bless all mothers. Amen.
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