Holy Interruptions

Why is Mother’s Day so HARD?

Let’s begin here: I love my Mom and all the wonderful women who have mothered me over the years. I love my children. I love my work as a parish priest. I love being a working Mama. I cannot tell you enough good things about how much I love Grace Church, and their love of me and my family. 

As for me, I do not love Mother’s Day.

Every year there is a new adventure to remind me of this fact. Let me tell you about this year.

An emergency came up for our dear friend’s husband was coordinating our church coffee hour (hosted by the children and youth of the church), so my husband stepped in to help. That meant our usual rhythm—him wrangling our three boys during the service—was disrupted.

The kids did a wonderful job setting everything up. Each child had a role and took pride in their work. They even had time for a Sunday school lesson and crafts. 

The children then came into the church for communion, which is when I made my first mistake. I invited them to find their parents rather than waiting at the back of the church during the Eucharistic Prayer. My six-year-old took me literally and began making his way up the aisle as I began to pray Eucharistic Prayer D (a holy, beautiful, and loooong communion prayer). 

With my hands extended upward, my eyes darted between the less familiar words of Prayer D and what was unfolding in the congregation: my oldest son trying to grab his younger brother, that younger brother escaping his grasp, and our babysitter wondering what he should do. I then watched our six-year-old climb over the closed altar rail to reach me, the parent I told him to find. He gave me a hug behind the altar and I thought he’d then head back to his brothers and babysitter. 

Alas, that was not to be. 

As I continued the prayer, he danced around the altar, then shook his bottom at the congregation (out of my sight—I heard the laughs and knew he was up to something). Eventually he came back my way and wiggled into my arms, spending the rest of the Eucharistic prayer standing between me and the altar.  

Wondering about the wafers and the wine. 

Watching intently. 

Only wiggling a little bit. 

When it came time to bless the bread and wine, he was literally between my arms as they enfolded this holy food and drink. 

Now comes my second mistake. During the Lord’s Prayer, I knelt down and asked him to stay still and with me, and not dance. 

I stood up, broke the bread and said, “Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” To which he responded, not with a dance, but a joyful “YYYYYAAAAAYYYYYY!”  We all laughed. He received communion with me and our patient chalice bearer. “We’ve all been there” she said as I gave her communion. “Thank you” I said as she gave me the cup. 

Yes, he is adorable. Yes, parishioners loved me, him, and all of us during this dancing Mother’s Day Eucharistic Prayer. And I LOVE my parish for loving us through this.

And, it also reminded me, once again, that Mother’s Day is hard. Folks are mourning the loss of their own mothers. We are mourning broken relationships, children hoped for, and so much more. I chaff against society’s pressure to appear certain ways as mothers; I want instead the opportunity for mothers to be authentically ourselves. 

But as I want this authenticity, I realize my son may have understood something I had forgotten. He was authentically himself: dancing to the Sanctus, basking in the loving gaze of parishioners, and staring in wonder at the bread and wine from a vantage point that is so familiar to me, but entirely new to him.

Meanwhile, I was trying to hold everything together—priesthood, motherhood, reverence, composure, responsibility. I wanted my beloved and rarely used Eucharistic Prayer D to feel holy. I wanted my child to behave (Lord, forgive me). I wanted, just for a moment, not to feel split in two.

And yet there he was: fully present. Joyful. Curious. Unashamed. Maybe that is its own kind of faith.

Not polished or perfectly still, but embodied. A faith that wiggles and whispers questions and shouts “YYYYYAAAAAYYYYYY!” at the breaking of the bread. A faith that trusts it is welcome near the altar.

I still think Mother’s Day is hard. It carries grief, pressure, longing, exhaustion, and impossible expectations for so many of us. I still bristle at the versions of motherhood that ask women to be endlessly grateful, perfectly composed, and quietly self-sacrificing.

But perhaps this year, through my dancing child and the relational words of Eucharistic Prayer D, God reminded me that holiness rarely arrives tidy and controlled. Perhaps love looks more like being interrupted. More like making space for joy in the middle of frustration. More like small hands reaching for you because they trust you will hold them close.

Ok son. Ok God. You win.

Maybe Mother’s Day is not about perfect mothers after all. Maybe it is about learning, again and again, how to receive love in all its loud, inconvenient, holy forms.