Dear Mom,
First of all, I hope you don’t mind me addressing you so casually. I know other people often address you as “Our Lady” or “Holy Mother” or simply “Mary,” but when we walk around campus at the University of Notre Dame, my best friend Steph always calls out “Hey mom!” whenever we catch a glimpse of you perched on top of the Golden Dome and I’ve always liked that. So if you’ll allow it, I’m going to call you mom in this letter. I hope you recognize it for what it is, a sign of my deep love for you.
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| Posing with my earth mom and aunt in front of the dome at Notre Dame. |
The first time I really recognized how cool you could be (sorry it took me 25 years!) was during my first day of new teacher meetings at Xavier College Prep in Palm Desert, CA. Taking that job had required a huge leap of faith for me, I’d moved across the country to live and work in a town I’d never even heard of before, not a typical Erin move as you know. Just a few days after my arrival I listened to a fellow new teacher (and later good friend) speak about how she had a special love for and devotion to you. I couldn’t tell you now exactly what Natalie said about you that day, but I remember the way it made me feel. She and I shared a middle name, Marie, and until that point I had always considered my middle name to be cliche and boring. I knew it mattered to my other mom (the one who gave birth to me) because it was her own mother’s middle name, but in all honesty, I had always wished that it was more unique. When Natalie shared her story, however, I realized that my name connected me to you forever mom, and since then I’ve always felt proud of being linked to you in such a way.
Not surprisingly, once I recognized our link, my appreciation for you grew deeper during my time at Xavier. My first year in the desert, I gathered often during lunch with a group of female teachers and we prayed the rosary together. It was always quick, maybe 15 minutes or so, but it connected me to you in a new way. Sure, I’d prayed the rosary since I was young (although if I’m being honest, I usually did it as a way to fall asleep rather than as an intentional, thoughtful form of prayer… sorry Mom!), but I had never prayed it together with friends. I think more than the prayer, though, I was grateful to be welcomed and loved by these women who had such a special love for you. I admired their faith and wanted to be part of something like that. In fact, as I look back at my time at Xavier (which you know were some of the most formative years in my faith life), I realize that all of the women who were most important to me, the women who helped me to live my life for Christ, who inspired me to love more fully and deeply, who walked with me as I sought my vocation, each and every one of these women had a deep love of you. I think this matters, Mom. As I look back now, I am filled with gratitude for you because I know you put these women in my life to be physically present when you could not.
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| The statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe outside Dolores Mission, decorated for her feast day. |
Now Mom, I know you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, okay, Erin, all this is great, but why are you telling me this NOW? Why is all this so important to you in this specific moment in time? Hold tight, Mom, I’m getting to that right now.
For the past two weeks I’ve been on a pilgrimage through Spain and Italy, following in the steps of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Pretty cool, right? And while I’ve learned a whole lot of fascinating things about Ignatius and the early Jesuits, more than anything, I’ve been struck by your presence everywhere on this journey.
When we were in Spain, we stopped at something like seven different Marian shrines in four days. At first I was confused, why these places? I’ve never heard of most of these before, what do they have to do with Ignatius? We learned that even though visits to many of these shrines aren’t officially documented in Ignatius’ autobiography, historically it is unimaginable that a religious pilgrim like Ignatius traveling the direction he did would not have stopped at each of these places. This surprised me. I guess I never realized how important you were to my buddy Iñigo.3 I didn’t realize how central your presence was and is in Ignatian spirituality and devotion. As a product of his times in many ways, Ignatius, like many of his contemporaries, believed that the best way to access God was through you. As Jesus’ mom, you had a unique relationship and privileged access to your son. In the same way I call my own earthly mother when I’m overwhelmed or sad or joyful or just need someone to talk to, Ignatius visited your shrines to talk to you. It makes sense.
As I reflected back over my trip later, I realized that many of my deepest moments of consolation occurred at these Marian shrines. For example, at Our Lady of Olatz in Azpeitia, I felt God’s presence reverberating off the walls of the simple chapel, captured in the voices of my fellow pilgrims as they sang the Salve Regina. After seeing your image, found by a farmer among the thorns at Arantzazu,4 I sat outside and was awed by the beauty of the mountains and the soft breeze across my face. When we visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, I was wowed by the sheer number of people who travelled to see you. In Montserrat, when I came face to face with the Black Madonna, I wanted so much to share this image of you with my students. I found your representation as something other than white to be powerful and important, welcoming all people into participation in Christ.
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The image of Madonna and Child
in the Cathedral of Saint Paul’s Outside-the-Walls in Rome.
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Even my purchase of the only souvenir I’d picked up thus far, a 10 bead rosary bracelet from the childhood home of my boy Francis Xavier, was connected to you. Because of the connections I’ve found between Xavier’s life and my own,5 this visit was the one I was most looking forward to. But the momento I picked up, although it had Frank’s face on it (like you and I, Francis Xavier and I are on familiar terms… I also hope he doesn’t mind), it was a tool to pray with you. Because you’ve always been there for me even when I didn’t acknowledge you.
And in these same moments, as I scribbled furiously in my journal (my favorite form of prayer, as you know), I flashed back to Xavier once again (the school, not the saint), and I started (with your guidance, I’m sure) to connect even more dots. Everything that happened to me at Xavier and on this immersion began to click into place. It struck me just how Jesuit this devotion to you is and how much it had been present in my life without my acknowledging it. It was like when I started learning about the Ignatian spirituality and the Jesuits when I started teaching almost ten years ago. Day after day I was struck by just how Jesuit my life had been up until that point, but I didn’t realize it because I didn’t “speak the language.” My realization of your presence in my life and on this trip was similar. It was really Jesuit and it had always been there, I just didn’t see it.
So basically, mom, consider this letter as a long way of saying THANK YOU. Thanks for being my mother, for loving me even when I forget you’re around, for giving up your only son so that I could live, for placing women in my life who have shaped and guided me into the person I am today, and for working behind the scenes to help me build a relationship with your Son and God the Father. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without you!
Your loving daughter,
Erin MARIE Conway
P.S. Oh, and thanks for giving me the mom who birthed me as well, she shares a lot of these same qualities and I don’t always thank her enough for them!
1 Dolores means sorrows in Spanish.↩
2 Dolores Mission Parish is the launching place of Homeboy Industries and the former parish of my hero, Father Greg Boyle, SJ. During my time at Xavier, I helped coordinate and lead immersion trips to Dolores Mission for our students. The parish to me is a beacon of social justice and Catholicism done right.↩
3 We used the names Iñigo and Ignatius interchangeably on the pilgrimage. The man we now know as Ignatius of Loyola was born with name Iñigo but then changed his name to Ignatius sometime while he studied in Paris.↩
4 The word Arantzazu literally means, “You, among the thorns?!” which is what the farmer who found the statue is believed to have said upon discovering it (he was looking for his cow).↩
5 To understand more why I feel so connected to Francis Xavier, check out my first post!↩
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