Today is most of all the golden day for Mothers. It is the Noche Buena of Holy Mary who gave up whatever else she wanted to do and went against public opinion and policy to give birth to our Hope and Savior, Jesus. She knew what she was doing, although stunned by the power of it, and willingly she gave herself up to be the handmaiden of God. She spoke poetry as she agreed to take on the birthing task then she bowed down with no complaint in the lowliest of stables, in unclean conditions, and an unfriendly environment, to push out that Holy Child from her womb and hold Him to her breast. She fed him and kept Him alive. She showed courage when forced to flee with God’s son in her arms to escape a rabid Herod who wanted all power for himself. She put her child first, as most mother’s do. She trusted her faith, strong as Abraham’s, and watched her son become the God he was destined to be, as painful as it must have been to give Him over to His short ministry. She was the first to walk beside Him as He carried the cross and then saw him hanging on it, and helped to take his body to a tomb. Ever since, she has been our mother role model: Holy Mary, Mother of God. Full of Grace. Pray for us sinners.

Recently, I watched an intriguing documentary on faith called “In the Name of God.” I was curious why there was only one woman included among the religious leaders speaking on camera and, at that, she was a Hindu in white gown, who was having her five minutes of fame because she hugged people as a healer. Everyone else on the program was male. Why? Is religious conversation and leadership only valuable when it comes from men? Through spiritual history, men have designed, dominated and directed most beliefs. Women too often are the underskirts or the evil Eves who must be hidden and silenced just by being whom we are. Religion seems almost a macho field, like football games or SWAT teams. And yet women make up the majority of congregations, missions and saints.

Beginning in the seventies, a few Christian Bishops and Jewish Rabbis broke barriers that had prevented women from holy leadership by allowing them to enter into the holiest of holies and into ordination to serve God, as I have had the privilege of doing. But most priests/ pastors/ ministers are still in denial of this acceptance. They do not trust the female voice. They treat her spiritual advocacy as null and void. When I was part of a seminar in Jerusalem in 1997 with various bishops and priests, a bishop and his wife from Texas refused to accept the Eucharist where shepherds had abided in the field keeping watch over sheep and saw the star, solely because the body and blood of Christ had been blessed by a woman’s priest. It broke the ambiance of sharing Christ together, as we had often done that week. We were a small group. But one Anglican bishop from Chile had already explained to me the problem was did women have the ability to administer the church. Yet we, the mothers of these very holy men, can change baby boys’ diapers and nurse them with our breasts, lead them to church and pay for their training, but are not worthy to hold faith-based leadership position as priests. Women certainly number among the most prestigious dead saints, who gave their lives for their faith, and of course Jesus would not have been born without a humble Mary who took the risk and stood beside him through life and death, and has been hallowed before all women ever since.

Currently, the holy hierarchy of the apostolic churches (Roman, Anglican and Orthodox) has failed at trust and respect because men who were given the power through ordination to the priesthood hid and still hide under its cover of “do no wrong” holiness, custom and power. Parish priests have been sheltered and allowed to escape punishment from evil and abusive things they did/do behind closed sacristies, causing drastic pain and fear in many young kids.

At the same time when men point to the Biblical declaration that we must love everyone in the manner of Jesus, with that agape love that loves the enemy and those who seek to do us harm, too many male priests huddle in safety in the fellowship of those who are just like them and their filth has been swept under the skirts of the monsignors, cardinals and arch-bishops like dust. At a time when our youth are as distracted as a ten-legged octopus and are becoming permanent delinquents because they have no fathers, no heroes to trust, not even parish priests and pastors, it is the mothers who take to the streets to support them and protest their abuses.

At a time when corruption of politicians and the egos of entertainers and television pastors are stretching the stings of correctness to egregious ends, who else can we depend on but wise, honest women, mothers and grandmothers who put character before money? What better relief than to faint into the embrace of a mom? Who better understands a tear? Yet now, because of the actions of pedophiles in clergy collars and a few teachers, those who work with our children can no longer give a hug of caring, of encouragement, of reward to little ones. No closed doors for conferences for child or adult. Nothing is innocent, not a hug, a touch, a moment of saying I care about you and understand your pain. We cannot do this anymore without being sued. What a world. What a horrible world we have developed for children outside of God’s simple creation of Eden.

And worse, it is the age when a single atheist or agnostic can convince legal minds or hire such deceitful lawyers that all the foundations of Christmas or other religious celebrations that bring joy to the majority have to be shut down. Something is wrong here. How can traditions held for two or three thousands of years all of a sudden be outlawed? Because a handful doesn’t like it? Or agree? Why should the marble crib in the basement of a church in Bethlehem be forgotten? If you have touched it, and I have, you never forget the magnitude of what happened in that manger on a bed of straw. I am sure God watches in pain.

We are poor fighters without guns or weapons. We prefer the easy way out. We are so busy selling God, we forget to look at how we guide our own lives because that is the best test of our hearts. We claim to not be racist, yet our churches speak loudly of racism since so many of them are still all white or all black. We inevitably select who is allowed to kneel at our altars. Didn’t Jesus attend to the needs of all men and women, even the loathed Samaritans? Our pretentious words get out of hand. We are His. He is Ours. But really, who knows whom will be chosen? Will we all? Is every sin forgiven? Our greed goes over the top. Our eyes see the glory of ourselves, not the Lord. We fail to brandish swords of truth, of right and wrong, of humility. We slack on tolerance, acceptance, forgiving, righteousness, love and patience.

We need to look again at the our gospels to see who God’s only Son was and what His words (not some interpretation of them) actually said. Are you attuned to how He thought, responded, reacted, loved? Are you familiar with how He got here, what Scripture foretold? I follow this God, who through the Immaculate Conception, sent his only Son to this earth to help us get on the right track. He is with whom I want to walk and in whom I have faith. I have kissed his crib, His rock of agony at Golgotha, the soil of His cross, His empty tomb. I feel him everywhere I turn and in everyone I meet not just at Christmas and Easter when everyone is “on “ their faith, but in every corner of every day life. And I continually long for the next step when I pray He allows me, a woman and mother, to soar on the wings of his angels from this horizon to his kingdom to touch His hand and thank him for trying to save us, our churches, our temples, our faiths, even now. In the birth of our Savior through the Virgin Mary, may we all find a cause, a way, a hope and love. Tis the Season of Hope.