Mother takes perfect care

By From the Heart | Jenna Miller | Consider the Lilies

Aug 04

This is the second in a series by Jenna Miller.

I’ve been taking Charles Peguy’s poem, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, slowly these past few weeks.

In the poem, Peguy writes of consecrating children, his children, to Mary and says,

Ever since that time everything has been going well.

Naturally.

How would you expect it to go otherwise.

Than well.

Because it was the Blessed Virgin who was involved.

Who took on the responsibility.

And she knows better than we do. (p. 31)

Our family is part of the International Schoenstatt Movement, a Catholic apostolate that encourages everyday sanctity through consecration to the Blessed Mother.  One of the phrases of the Schoenstatt Movement, really a prayer, is “Mphc” – Mater perfectam habebit curam – or, “Mother takes perfect care.”

A loaded statement—not an unsure question, asking “please, please, please, will you take care of me?”

No, a statement, one that reflects a simple reality.  Mary is Mother of the Church (cf John 19:26-27), of all of us individuals in the Church, and remembering that reality, living in light of that reality is helpful, reassuring, secure, hopeful.  Peguy writes a little further on:

It’s really curious that all Christians don’t do as much [consecrate to Mary].

It’s so simple.

It’s always the simple things that get overlooked.

We’ll search and search, and hurt ourselves searching, and we’ll never think of what is simplest.

Ultimately, we’re all dumb, may as well admit it immediately. (p. 31)

It’s the same with that Schoenstatt statement, “Mphc”—Mother Takes Perfect Care.  She takes care, right now.  We think, “but my problem isn’t like that; it’s complicated.”  We think, “But I’ve been hurt too badly.”  We think, “I’m seeing too much suffering and confusion to trust that Mother Takes Perfect Care.”

And yet, the simple truth remains, like a quiet deep breath in the middle of an anxious time.  Mother takes perfect care.

Jenna Miller and her husband, Stephen, are not native to the area, but have been raising and homeschooling their six children on a Todd County hobby farm for the past fourteen years. Jenna likes to study theology, play the cello, make things, and read good children’s books.  Both she and Stephen are converts to Catholicism. Jenna just finished her master’s degree in theology and started working as the Sacramental Coordinator at their parish, St. Mary of Mount Carmel in Long Prairie.

 

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