Jesus gave his mother Mary to be our spiritual mother just before He died on the cross. However, I think it’s very easy to forget that Mary was a very human mother to Jesus. 

When Mary gave her consent to Gabriel to be the mother of the Savior, she was not just a mere host for a divine creature. Rather God was able to fertilize her egg so that Jesus would receive His human flesh from Mary. While the conception of Jesus had a supernatural component, God allowed the natural progression of human time to: form Jesus in Mary’s womb, have Mary give birth naturally to Jesus, have Mary and Joseph raise Jesus from a baby to a boy to a teenager until He became a man. Jesus was fully human (and fully divine), and experienced all the emotions a human being can. Mary was a witness to her Son’s humanity throughout His life, but most especially when He was a child. If Jesus fell carrying the cross, He certainly must have taken a tumble like all children do as they are learning to walk or during play with other children. And if these incidents resulted in skinned knees and bruises, Jesus probably cried a number of times, just as He would as an adult when He wept for His dead friend Lazarus. In the movie, The Passion of the Christ, there is one scene I remember when Jesus was washing up before a meal and playfully splashed His mother. While movies are afforded the ability to add scenes that may not be historically documented, I loved that this was included because it beautifully illustrated the bond between mother and Son and their shared humanity. While there may not be documentation for that incident, I’m sure there were plenty of that type while Jesus was growing up. 

While most of Jesus’ early years are undocumented in the Gospels, there is no doubt that Mary and Jesus shared an intense mother-son bond. While the best example of this is Mary at the foot of the cross, another example is at the wedding feast in Cana. It is at Mary’s prompting that Jesus performs His first public miracle. Reflections of this Gospel passage are mostly from a spiritual perspective, but what about from a purely human exchange? Mary knows Jesus and what He is capable of doing: working miracles. She does not ask Him to make more wine, rather she simply informs Him of the issue at hand: “They have no wine.” (John 2:3) Many commentaries have analyzed Jesus’ response, but since Jesus was at the beginning of His ministry, perhaps it was not yet time to have such a big public miracle, like the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Yet Mary is keen to make sure that the wedding feast is not marred by the embarrassment of running out of wine. Perhaps her exchange with Jesus was a private conversation and only those in the most intimate circle of friends were aware. Mary does not know how Jesus will solve the issue, but directs the wait staff to follow Jesus’ directions, which end up sounding very ordinary until they are directed to draw some water and have the headwaiter taste it. In John’s Gospel, he conveys, “…and his disciples began to believe in Him.” (John 2:11). It seems as if only the disciples who accompanied Him at this point were aware of the miracle. The Gospel does not seem to indicate that anyone else from the wedding were aware of what happened; or maybe they were too busy enjoying the result of the miracle to comprehend what happened. 

As we celebrate Mother’s Day this coming weekend, let us remember the motherhood of Mary, in its very human aspects, for it is in the culmination of these human experiences that she becomes a spiritual mother to us all.