The real truth is that God has given us three mothers.  Three? Three! The mother who gave us physical birth, also knows as “Mom”; the Mother who gave us spiritual birth, the Church; and the Mother of a redeemed humanity, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Being a mother is tough. It is a little easier if we had a great mother as an example, but each child is unique, and all of us have to learn some things by trial and, some times, even error.

The other day, listening to KPIO 1570 am radio, I heard a young man, who had come to the priesthood after converting from a life spent in the pursuit of pleasure. Among other things, he said something like: “Mothers are always carrying their children. First in their womb, suffering through pregnancy and childbirth. Then they carry them in their hearts.  Oftentimes, this is the more painful and the longer of the two.” He’s right, I thought. In fact, years ago, when my kids were toddlers, I was talking with a friend when one of my babies stepped on my toes.  Instinctively, I said “Ouch!” My friend immediately said: “That’s nothing. When they are little, they step on your toes. When they are big, they step on your heart.” How many mothers have experienced the truth of that statement?

Those of us who belong to the St. Monica Cenacle, and gather in the Eucharistic Adoration Chapel the 4th Monday of every month to pray for our fallen-away children and/or grandchildren can vouch for that.  Suffering and sacrifice is the prerequisite for motherhood. That, and patience.

Isn’t the same true for our Mother the Church? She gives us birth through Baptism, nourishes us through the Sacraments; tries to teach us what is right and what is wrong; is there for us when we are in trouble and patiently waits for us when we stray, always ready to welcome us back when we are tired of wandering around in all the wrong places.

Then there is our Mother Mary. She is the beautiful face of a redeemed humanity. The one who was able to say “no” to Satan every time that he tried to tempt her away from God, and who said “yes” to God every moment of every day. No wonder so many of us love her! She is our mother, just as Jesus is our brother.  She was His last gift to us, as He hang upon the Cross.

How many of us have turned to Mary when we did not know what to do with our children, asking for her help, knowing that she would understand our grief! She who stood at the foot of the Cross, watching her innocent Son die to save us, will never turn a deaf ear to our troubles, and she’ll present them to her Son, on our behalf. It is no wonder that in Italy just about everywhere we run into small pictures of Mary, painted on walls, or standing as a small chapel by the side of the street. They remind us of the three Mothers that God gave each one of us, out of His infinite love and care. “Love your Mother,” this small street chapel reminds that to every passer by in Grumo (literally, lump or speck), a tiny dot on Lake Como. No, not Gaia.

One day a young man came on business, looked around and said: “I could never live in a place like this! I live in a town of about 10,000 and the other day my wife told me: ‘today the grocer called me by name, this place is too small for us, it’s time to move’.” I just stared at him and thought: “What a sad philosophy of life! Why would anyone live in a place where they are always a stranger?”

Especially today, when families are smaller and scattered around the Country, living in a big city can feel like being a number. You know, “What’s your Social?” “What’s your telephone number?” “Take a number!” I remember a wise old friend telling me: “Dying in a city is like taking a hand out of a pail of water. The water closes over the gap and no one knows the hand is missing.”

And that’s why I always loved small places, like the New Mexican village, or the village in the Alps where nonno’s cabin greeted us every summer. We were known by name, and we felt human. I am convinced that’s how God meant us to live from the beginning.  After all, didn’t He place Adam and Eve in a garden?  And God does not go by numbers. He knows the name of every single person who ever lived and who will ever live. He knows every face, every wrinkle: Jesus tells us that He counts every hair on our heads.  Everywhere in the Bible we read of the care that our Creator takes of every one of us. Like Isaiah 49:15-16: “Can a woman forget the infant at her breast or a loving mother the child of her womb? Even these forget, yet I will not forget you… I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.” In other words we, each one of us, is special.

Well, let me tell you: I knew I was not going to be special to anyone when I first moved to Denver. I remembered the “hand in the bucket of water” example of my old friend and I knew she was right.  So, before looking for a place to live, I looked for a parish where I could feel at home. As a Catholic, I knew that there would always be a place for me there, a place where folks believed what I believed, and would welcome me by name. And I was right.

Holy Trinity is the second parish I have attended since coming to Denver many years ago, and it does feel like a small village in many ways. For instance: I’ve seen babies who were baptized when I first came to Holy Trinity receive their First Communion; children who went through the RE program who are now going to college (help!) and yes, some of the folks who welcomed me in the parish are now with the Lord.

Many of us are growing old, but we are getting there together, so we hardly notice. We pray for those among us who are ill, by name, and we rejoice when they recover. If we haven’t seen someone for a while, we ask around “have you seen so and so? Is everything OK?” We grieve when a fellow parishioner is going through tough times: a lost job, a broken marriage, or rebellious children.

Oh how wise is our Mother Church to give us the parish! Where else could we feel at home, with family, no matter where we are in the world? A few years ago, a friend went to Paris (France, that is) on a business trip. Guess what impressed her the most? “I went to Mass and even though I don’t know French, I understood everything that they were doing and saying! It was just like here!” In other words, in a strange Country, a strange language, she understood because she knew the words by heart, and she felt comfortable. She belonged, and belonging is important to all of us.

Can you imagine living in a town where there’s no Catholic church? And yet there are many such places all over the world, and not only in countries where the Church is overtly persecuted. Some parishes have been closed even in the United States, because of lack of priests. I can think of no worse tragedy than living without the Sacraments, without the Church, without the parish. It would feel like a child lost in a great big place, looking for mom, dad, brothers and sisters and not finding them. A very scary, big, inhuman place, where we don’t belong.

In Cymbalis = with cymbals. These two short Latin words are taken from the 150th Psalm in which the Psalmist exhorts us to “… praise Him with the loudsounding cymbals…” In Latin, that goes: “Laudate Deum in cymbalis bene sonantibus.” In small Italian towns, old men used to gather in a wine pub at the end of the day; play cards and… have a few glasses.  By the time they were done, they thought they were opera singers; unfortunately, to those who were sober it sounded like… clanging cymbals, and when they spoke they made no sense at all. To this day, when someone is loud and nonsensical, we say that they are in cymbalis.

Refugium Peccatorum = Refuge of Sinners. This is one of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s titles. To this day the usual comedians, among which I number my own mother, use these two words to indicate a very messy place. For instance, my bedroom. But also the closet where everyone tosses stuff that doesn’t seem to belong anywhere, or the last box to remain unpacked after a move etc. etc.

Il Cavallo di San Francesco = St. Francis’ Horse. As we all know, St. Francis gave his horse back to his father when he converted and decided to follow the Lord. After that, he travelled everywhere on foot.  Therefore, when we say that we are going to go a long way on foot, we say “I’m going there on St. Francis’ horse.”

Segnarsi col gomito = Making the sign of the Cross with your elbow. I think this is strictly a saying in my part of Italy, the Lake Como region. Go ahead, give it a try and see if you succeed. We use this sentence to say that someone has received an incredible blessing.  For instance, when one of my future uncle’s mother wanted to know more about the woman he was about to marry (one of my aunts), she asked around the town where my mother’s family lived for suitable references on the character of her prospective daughter-in-law. After the wedding, the mother-in-law herself told us that more than one person answered her: “If your son is marrying a Calvetti, he can make the sign of the Cross with his elbow.” Meaning, he was very, very, very fortunate (and so he was, because he married a wonderful, holy woman).

Passa il Vescovo = The Bishop goes by. Those of you who are older than… will remember that, as part of the Confirmation ceremony, the Bishop would go by every confirmand, anoint our foreheads with Crism and then with two fingers gave a light slap on our cheeks. Why did he do that? Because we are taught that on receiving Confirmation we became “soldiers of Christ” and as such we were expected to undergo trials on His behalf. So, the usual comedians, my mother for example, used to warn us if we were misbehaving with the words: Passa il Vescovo? Which was enough to calm us down pretty quickly.

Scherza coi fanti ma lascia stare I Santi = Joke with people but don’t mess with the Saints. The word “fanti” literally means the foot soldier, but in common use, it means all those of us who are still walking the earth. In this proverb, Saints does not necessarily mean only those who are official residents of Heaven.  When our folks taught us to respect the elderly, our teachers, bosses and everyone else whom we met, they would often use this sentence.

For instance, we would NEVER dare “horse around” with out parents: their persons were sacred to us, so unless we kissed or hugged them, we would not dream of touching them. For the same reason, the thought of “sassing” our teachers would never even enter the back of our minds: it was simply unthinkable. I remember how shocked I was when I first came to the U.S. and kids who did not even come up to my knees would call me Nicoletta, instead of Mrs. MacKenzie. Now I’m used to it, but I would NEVER, EVER have called anyone who was not a particular friend or a relative by their first name.  Thinking back on it, I realize the wisdom of that sentence: it is a lot easier to be disrespectful when we call someone by their first name, isn’t it? It is for that reason that, if my children ever took it into their heads to call me anything but mother I think I’d warn them that Passa il Vescovo and he’s coming right now!

Ite Missa Est = Go, the Mass is ended. We still use this Latin sentence to signify that whatever we were doing is done. Or, in the translation of my mother, the comedienne: “Time to go to bed.”