Mothers: Lifelong Tabernacles
Photo: A sculpture of Our Lady used as a vessel to contain the Most Blessed Sacrament, Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church in Chicago, image source
Carrying another person around in your body is a rather odd sensation, especially when that person begins to move and kick. As an introduction to motherhood, it can be quite confronting, particularly when unexpected or unwanted.
However, when you think about it, this arrangement is a beautiful privilege that mothers enjoy. There is a profound intimacy as the miracle of procreation unfolds within the sanctuary of the womb.
The new human life is a mystery waiting to be revealed, containing even the beginnings of the next generation – as females are born with all their eggs, part of you was first created within your grandmother’s womb when your mother was a four-month-old fetus.
Soundwaves
The child in the womb is able to hear sounds inside his mother’s body between 16 to 22 weeks’ gestation. From 23 weeks onward, the baby can even discern his mother’s voice and other sounds beyond the womb. BabyCenter states:
“At first, your baby's ears can hear only low-pitched sounds, meaning babies in the womb can generally hear male voices better than female voices. However, your own voice will sound loud to your baby because it's close and reverberates through your body as you speak. Research shows babies learn to recognize their mother's voice inside the womb, and show a clear preference for her voice over others...
At around 26 weeks, your baby may begin to respond to the sounds they hear with changes in their heartbeat, breathing, and movement. If the noise is particularly loud, your baby may startle – and you might feel your baby move. Ultrasounds have also caught changes in babies' facial expressions when they hear music.”
In 1975, Japanese doctor Hajime Murooka hit upon the idea of playing the sound of a human heartbeat to crying babies to calm them – it worked!
A Finnish study found that newborn babies can recall melodies played to them in the womb, reacting more strongly to the tunes after birth.
Alix Zorrillo Pallavicino at the University of Milan wrote:
“Boris Brott, director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hamilton, Ontario… tells of his surprise as a boy on discovering that he was able to perform to perfection pieces that he had never played before, as well as knowing what was coming next in a previously unseen cello part before turning the pages of the score.
“One day, when speaking with his mother, a professional cellist, he discovered that all the scores that he knew at first sight, were of pieces that his mother had been practicing and therefore had played many times while she was pregnant with him (Verny, 1981).
“It is therefore critically important to be aware that during pregnancy, appropriate stimulation can help establish a good relationship between mother and child or rather between parents and child, and that music and play, as mediators of this relationship, are naturally complementary to language in nourishing and sustaining it.”
Indeed, pregnancy is a blessed time when you can begin to interact with your baby, even though you cannot see his face just yet. The food and drink an expectant mother ingests affects the baby’s health and preferences.
Tabernacles and Priests
Scripture bears witness to the humanity of the unborn. In Genesis 22:25, Esau and Jacob struggled in their mother Rebecca’s womb, a precursor to their conflict in later years.
Painting: The Annunciation, Philippe de Champaigne
At the Incarnation, when the angel Gabriel extended God’s proposal to Mary at the Annunciation and she accepted her role as the New Eve, Jesus was fully present from the moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed His mother and He was conceived. Pope Benedict XVI taught us in his book Dogma and Preaching:
“Advent” does not mean “expectation”, as some may think. It is a translation of the Greek word parousia which means “presence” or, more accurately, “arrival”, i.e., the beginning of a presence. In antiquity the word was a technical term for the presence of a king or ruler and also for the god being worshipped, who bestows his parousia on his devotees for a time.
“Advent”, then, means a presence begun, the presence being that of God. Advent reminds us, therefore, of two things: first, that God’s presence in the world has already begun, that He is present though in a hidden manner; second, that His presence has only begun and is not yet full and complete, that it is in a state of development, of becoming and progressing toward its full form.
His presence has already begun, and we, the faithful, are the ones through whom He wishes to be present in the world. Through our faith, hope, and love He wants his light to shine over and over again in the night of the world.
That night is “today” whenever the “Word” becomes “flesh” or genuine human reality. The Christ child comes in a real sense whenever human beings act out of authentic love for the Lord.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that at the Visitation, when Mother Mary hurried to assist her elderly cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist, Elizabeth said to Mary: “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 1:44)
This parallels King David leaping for joy before the Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6:16), the symbol of God’s presence, which contained a pot of manna, the tablets with the Ten Commandments, and Aaron’s rod that budded. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, carrying the Bread of Heaven, the Word of God made flesh, the Eternal Lawgiver, our Most High Priest – Emmanuel, God-with-us.
The Levites, Jewish males descended from the Tribe of Levi, were appointed to minister before the Ark. Only they could carry it, the Holy of Holies. Alone among the tribes of Israel, the Levites did not receive any land – their inheritance was the Lord Himself (Joshua 13:33).
Similarly, St Joseph, descended from King David and the Tribe of Judah, was appointed the guardian of Mary and Jesus; he was “the one chosen shadow of God upon Earth”. Now, we have priests, our spiritual fathers, who offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each day, giving us Jesus in Holy Communion and maintaining the Real Presence in our tabernacles.
Like St Joseph, fathers are called to be the guardians of their wives and children, protecting and providing for us. My husband uses his innate strength to serve us each day, carrying the babies and the nappy bag, waking up early to feed and change our children before work so that I can sleep in, working hard at his physically-demanding job, and driving all over the place to collect baby goods that have caught my eye. Pope John Paul II stated that the family is the primary school of love. In the domestic church, the stronger members serve the weaker, nourishing and cherishing them.
Lifelong Bonds
There is a marvellous phenomenon called fetomaternal microchimerism, where cells from the fetus (Latin: young/offspring) migrate through the placenta and enter the mother’s bloodstream, settling into her tissues.
These fetal cells can repair and help regenerate damaged tissues. They have been found in Caesarean incisions and other wounds, assisting with the healing process by producing collagen. They have also been found to aid in the production of breastmilk, kickstarting lactation and protecting the mother from breast cancer years afterward.
Persisting and multiplying in the mother for decades, fetal cells can transform into cardiac cells in the mother’s heart and nerve cells in the mother’s brain, boosting maternal health. A 2012 Seattle study found cells with the Y chromosome in the brains of deceased mothers – these women acquired their sons’ DNA while carrying them in the womb.
The Oro Valley Catholic Podcast reflects:
“God, the maker of all things and relational in His own Trinitarian nature, reveals in our biology a similar relational nature. We are connected to one another at the deepest level. Our bodies tell us that we are not meant to be singular, autonomous individuals but a communion of persons, as in the Trinitarian nature of God.”
A covenant is an exchange of persons, where two families become one. Medical professor Kristin Marguerite Collier mused at Crux: “… we see relationship at the heart of the Scriptures. We see that God, the maker of all things, is in a covenant bond with His people. We would be wrong to think that God, being the maker of all things, and being relational in His very nature, would not reveal in our biology a relational nature.”
Although not a Catholic, Professor Collier said,
“Jesus Christ redeemed every stage and aspect of our bodies through which He has passed. The Word became flesh in Mary’s uterus. Therefore, the uterus is a sacred space because it held our Lord and Savior.
If we consider the biological reality of fetomaternal microchimerism, we can assume that some of Jesus’ cells transferred across the placenta in Mary’s womb into the Blessed Mother. What we could take from this is that even when Jesus physically left His mother, part of Him remained in her and remains in her forever. This further magnifies her position as the glorious Theotokos.
I can also imagine that fetomaternal microchimerism can carry significant meaning not only for Catholic women, but for all women who have lost prenatal children or children after birth because we know that mothers have always thought, in some way, their children, even after death, were still with them. Now we see, through the lens of fetomaternal microchimerism, that they still are.”
I miscarried my first pregnancy at six weeks, and although I never held my first child in my arms, it is a comfort to know that she is not only in Heaven watching over our family, but also left traces of herself in my body; in a way, she lives on in her cells within me.
Steve Ray writes at CatholicConvert.com: “… science now informs us that Mary was the Ark of the Covenant that carried God Himself not only for nine months but for the remainder of her existence. Mary was — and indeed still is — the Ark of the New Covenant and the repository of the Divine.”
Like Mary, we too are called to be portable tabernacles of Christ, carrying Him in our hearts to share with every person we meet. And we mothers are lifelong tabernacles of our children, granted the awesome mission to help them grow and flourish as the unique persons that God created them to be, souls formed in the image of Christ.
