I have often referred to these later years of my life as a season of pondering and service. I find myself praying daily for the graces of charity and true, selfless hospitality. This season, I had assumed (which is always dangerously foolish), would be a time of finally realizing my selfish desires of peaceful silence sprinkled with travel and quality time spent with our children and grandchildren (and maybe even great-grandchildren). In the reality of God’s plan, it has become a time of being called out of my selfish comfort zone into a much greater place of selfless service. This, I know, is God the Father’s answer to my prayer for the graces I need to attain salvation: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…the Lord has done great things for me and holy is His name…He has lifted up the lowly” (Lk 1:46-55). I am the lowly one whom he has lifted up. Through my husband’s love and the gift of our six children, I have been raised up to the beautiful vocation of wife and mother—the greatest gift, I believe he could ever bestow upon me, a woman who aspires to become a true Woman of God.

‘ . . . He has brought down the proud in their conceit . . .” (Lk 1:51) I am the proud one who has been brought low. The pride I attributed to my “perfect parenting” has, in fact, become an object of a humbling reality check. The “model family” that I (emphasis on “I”) thought could withstand all the slings and arrows thrown at it is not a model after all. Some of our children are not in contact with the family unit at all, and others are finding it difficult to relate to one another. The “perfection” that I thought I had achieved is now crumbling, and with humility and hope, I find myself on my knees daily begging God my Heavenly Father for wisdom, peace, unity, and wholeness in our family. 

And yet, in all of this, in his great mercy, God my Father, with the gift of the Holy Spirit and his spouse Mary, has brought me to a place of this hope. As I navigate these seasons that lie before me, the journey continues. Mary’s fiat is my guidepost. It is her quiet ponderings through the seasons of her life that feed my soul and allow me to hope in the path laid out for me and for our family.