Lord Jesus, Mother’s Day is here again.
For so many people, today is flowers, cards, breakfast in bed, handmade pictures, little arms around a mother’s neck, and voices calling:
“Mommy.”
For me, those things may be exactly what makes today hurt.
I want to be a mother.
I have wanted it for so long.
Perhaps I thought I would be one by now.
Maybe I imagined a baby on my hip at Mass this morning.
Maybe I pictured my husband handing me a card signed with our child’s tiny handprint.
Maybe I thought there would be a car seat in the back, Cheerios on the floor, toys throughout the house, and someone needing me before I had even finished my coffee.
I wanted the beautiful parts.
I even wanted the exhausting parts.
Instead, Mother’s Day has come again, and my arms are empty.
Lord, sometimes this day makes me wonder where I belong.
At church, mothers may be asked to stand.
And I remain seated.
Someone may hand out flowers to mothers at the door.
Do I take one?
Do I walk past?
Do I smile?
Do I cry when I reach the car?
Jesus, stay close to every woman who has ever had to make those calculations.
Stay close to the woman experiencing infertility.
The woman waiting to adopt.
The woman who has miscarried.
The woman whose baby was stillborn.
The woman whose child died.
The woman whose adoption failed.
The woman who desperately wanted children but never had them.
The woman who does not know what word describes the mothering love inside her because no child is currently calling her Mom.
Do not let this day tell her that she is invisible.
Lord, if I have conceived a child who died before birth, let me remember that child’s life today.
If I carried my baby only briefly, that love was real.
If I have buried a child, remain especially close to me when the world celebrates motherhood as though every mother’s children are still living beside her.
If I am an adoptive mother waiting for placement, strengthen me through the strange space between preparing to mother and having no child yet entrusted to my care.
And if I have never conceived at all, receive that grief too.
Sometimes infertility contains grief for someone who never existed—the child imagined, hoped for, named privately perhaps, pictured at different ages, but never conceived.
Help me grieve that unrealized future without confusing it with the death of a child who lived.
Both experiences can hurt deeply, but they are not the same.
You know the difference.
You also know the heart.
Lord, today I may see mothers everywhere.
Pregnant women.
Newborns.
Toddlers reaching for their mothers.
Adult children taking their mothers to lunch.
Grandmothers surrounded by generations.
I may genuinely rejoice for them and still feel something break open inside me.
Please do not let me hate myself for that.
Another woman’s motherhood is not the cause of my infertility.
Her child did not take mine.
Her joy is not an accusation against me.
Help me bless her without demanding that my heart feel painless while doing it.
If I need to step away from social media today, give me permission.
If I cannot attend a Mother’s Day gathering, give me wisdom.
If I can attend but need to cry afterward, meet me in the tears.
If I can celebrate joyfully today, let me receive that as grace without wondering whether it means I did not want motherhood enough.
There is no single correct way to survive a difficult Mother’s Day.
Jesus, protect me from the question that sometimes hides underneath all the others:
Why not me?
I see women become pregnant who did not want to be pregnant.
I see children neglected.
I see mothers who walk away.
I hear stories of babies abandoned or abused.
And I think:
Lord, I would love a child. Why won’t You give me one?
I do not understand.
Keep that confusion from turning into judgment of another person’s soul.
Keep it from turning into hatred of myself.
Fertility is not a reward for virtue.
Infertility is not punishment for failure.
A baby is not proof that one woman is more loved by God than another.
Help me hold onto that truth today.
But Jesus, I still ask.
Please let me become a mother.
If there is healing my body needs, bring it.
If conception is possible, please let life begin.
Let there be a positive test.
A heartbeat.
A growing belly.
A safe birth.
Let me hold the baby I have prayed for and whisper:
“I am your mother.”
And if adoption is the way I will become a mother, guide every part of that journey with justice and love.
Protect the child’s first mother.
Never let my desire for motherhood depend upon wishing hardship upon another woman.
If she can safely parent and wants to parent, give her what she needs.
If she freely chooses adoption, honor the magnitude of what she is carrying.
And if her child’s life becomes joined to mine, make me a mother who respects the whole truth of my child’s story.
Mary, today I come especially to you.
Mother’s Day can make devotion to you complicated when I desperately want what you had.
You carried Jesus.
You felt Him move.
You gave birth.
You nursed Him.
You watched Him grow.
But Mary, your motherhood was never merely sentimental.
You also knew uncertainty.
Fear.
Flight.
Prophecy.
Searching.
And eventually the Cross.
So I will not run from you today.
I will come closer.
If I cannot hold my baby, Mother Mary, hold me.
If I cannot say the word “Mom” about myself without crying, let me call you Mother.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, you appeared with Jesus hidden beneath your heart.
Cover every woman whose womb and heart carry longing.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, intercede for women experiencing infertility and waiting for adoption. Bring their petitions before Jesus in the Eucharist.
St. Joseph, pray for the husbands who watch the women they love struggle through this day and do not know how to make it better.
And Lord, bless my own mother today, whether she is living or has gone before me.
Thank You for the woman through whom You gave me life.
Where our relationship is beautiful, deepen my gratitude.
Where it is wounded, bring healing.
Where death has separated us, receive my love and grief.
And bless every woman who has mothered me in some way—with encouragement, teaching, protection, prayer, friendship, or sacrifice.
Jesus, do not let Mother’s Day become a referendum on my worth as a woman.
I am not less female because I have not given birth.
I am not less valuable because no one calls me Mom.
My dignity began before fertility was ever a question.
I am Your daughter.
And still, Lord, the longing remains.
I do not want to spiritualize it away.
I want a child.
I want the ordinary mess of motherhood.
I want someone to need another drink of water after bedtime.
I want fingerprints on the window.
I want toys under the couch.
I want school projects on the kitchen table.
I want to worry.
I want to comfort.
I want to teach.
I want to kiss scraped knees.
I want to pray beside a little bed.
I want to hear:
“Mom.”
So today, while other mothers receive flowers, I place this longing before You like an offering.
Please receive it gently.
And if someday Mother’s Day finally finds me with a child in my arms, do not let me forget the woman I was during these years.
Let me notice the woman sitting quietly at Mass.
Let me remember that Mother’s Day can hurt.
Let infertility make me more compassionate, not less.
And if motherhood never comes in the way I have hoped, remain with me as I discover how my life can still pour itself out in love without pretending that this loss does not matter.
But today, Lord, I am still asking.
Please let me become a mother.
Until then, when Mother’s Day hurts, stay very close.
And remind me that before anyone on earth ever calls me anything at all, heaven already knows my name:
Beloved daughter of God.
Mary, Mother of Jesus and my mother, pray for me.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for me.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, pray for us.
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Holy Family! Help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Amen.