We are fully launched into our school year! What a crazy time the months of August and September are. I have been inundated with meeting after meeting for both the school and the extracurricular program I help run, not to mention all the back-to-school meetings for our teenage daughters. And let’s not forget the return of sports!

​As September wraps up, and a real rhythm settles for all of us mothers, there’s a little more breathing room. For our family, a huge part of the beginning of the new school year is the beginning of new routines—school and sports and extracurriculars, yes, but also new family priorities.

​As for myself, these changes create in me a new sense of urgency to examine my own heart afresh. What do my children need this school year from their mother to make it a successful one? What do they need from me to make it also a year of goodness: growth in the good, the true, and the beautiful—ultimately, a happy year?

​Over and over, our Lord is putting in my heart the virtues of generosity and hospitality.

​Generosity is defined as “the giving of oneself in a willing and cheerful manner for the good of others.”

Hospitality is defined as “the disposition of receiving and treating others in a warm and generous way.” I would like to go a little further here and also state that in order to be hospitable, one must be affable. Affability, in turn, is defined as “being easy to approach and easy to talk to, friendly.”

​With the aforementioned school year, generosity and hospitality seem like the last things I need to spend time on! There is so much to do! I often think I’m better interiorly suited to the role of a drill sergeant than the role of mother-to-many, and oftentimes I wish my house would just run a bit more like a boot camp. No one has ever accused a drill sergeant of being affable, generous, or hospitable, to my knowledge. And while the actual mechanical runnings of my home would be smoother if we all just did the thing. I am not the drill sergeant of my children’s hearts. I am the steward of their hearts.

​I am their first encounter with Christ, from the moment of their conception, as I lay down my body for that new soul. I am their encounter with Christ when they have their first tumbles, their first wounds from the mouth of a friend, their first struggles with the heaviness of this world as they grow into adulthood. And, as they become adults, I will continue to have moments where they can encounter the generosity of Christ, his hospitality, and his affability, through me, if I cultivate these fruits of the Holy Spirit.

​As we are now, my children, from teenagers down to the baby, need a mother who gives to them cheerfully. They should not feel that they are a burden because of an interior disposition of my heart that is maligned. They need me to receive them into my arms, or simply receive their conversation, with peace and kindness. Any corrections that are given must be meted out with justice, firmness—and still, warmth. In short, all of them require a mother whose response to their presence is that of cheerful receiving and giving, with a heart that is ready to be present with them in whatever manner the situation presents.

​I invite you, mothers, to join me in reflecting on our particular children and what they need from us, as their mother. What virtues do we, as mothers of our particular family, need to grow in so that we may reflect Christ back to our children? I invite you to pray the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi with me as you reflect—what a beautiful and humble prayer—fitting for the heart of a mother.

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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.