Spiritual Motherhood
God’s Army of Victim Souls to Raise up a Holy Priesthood
In the document of the Congregation for the Clergy, “🔗Eucharistic Adoration for the Sanctification of Priest and Spiritual Maternity,” the Church recognizes the urgent need to raise an army of spiritual mothers for priests and seminarians:
The vocation to be a spiritual mother for priests is hardly unknown, barely understood and consequently, rarely lived too little although fundamental and vitally important. It is a vocation that is often hidden,
not apparent to the human eye, but intended to transmit spiritual life.
The mission of the women of the Love Crucified Community is to help raise up God’s army of victim souls. They are spiritual mothers who bring forth His “Apostles of Light” for the decisive battle at hand. Women like Mary, who out of love for Christ live the hidden martyrdom of the heart, united to Christ crucified. The food and nourishment, the source of life of a Spiritual Mother, must be the Eucharist.
Mary: We will use your hidden lives, lived in Jesus crucified, to aid in the renewal of the Church, the sanctification of priests, and the salvation of many souls. You will be the hidden force that raises up my army of holy priests. These are the priests who will usher in the reign of my Immaculate Heart, a new Pentecost for the Church. The ways of God are not the ways of the world. He will use the vocation of motherhood, united in me, to bring new life to the Church. Know that the most ordinary tasks of motherhood, lived in sacrificial love, please greatly the Father. He will use these simple and generous mothers, united to me, to renew the Church. This is the power of the Cross: souls united to Love Crucified solely to love Jesus as He has loved you. This is the love that will transform the world. —6/13/0), Simple Path, #142, p.386.
Spiritual Motherhood Lived Only in Mary
The Blessed Virgin Mary is the source of spiritual motherhood instituted by Christ from the Cross. Spiritual motherhood can be lived only in Mary. If lived without her, it is not spiritual motherhood. We find the purest essence of spiritual motherhood in the union of St. John and Mary established by Jesus at the foot of the Cross. Jesus, in His deepest agony, waited until He could share His Passion with them, to call them forth to become mother and son. They could not be mother and son to each other without first being victims of love, ONE with Christ’s Passion. Union with Christ at the Cross is at the center of Mary’s motherhood and at the center of St. John’s son/discipleship. At the Cross, they come together, and their relationship acquires a new meaning and a new fecundity because it has the fire of pure and perfect love. Mary, now the Mother of the Church, remains to form, St. John and the apostles, Mary Magdalen and the holy women, in the school of her Heart as she does with each of us. We, like them, must be formed in the School of Love—the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I, the Mother of all in heaven and on earth, the Mother of all priests, desire for their holiness. As I embraced St. John at the foot of the Cross, enveloped in the precious blood of my most adorable Son, I also want to embrace each priest. Through my Son, they are each my sons. I love them with my motherly pure heart. I want to lead them to be holy as Jesus is holy. I want to lead them into the abode of His pierced Heart. I will bring each of them to the Cross as I accompanied my Son. I will form them to be perfect victims as I formed my Son. I will place in their hearts the love of the Cross as the Father placed this love in the Heart of my Son and in mine.
My daughter, I want you to help each priest come to the Cross. Share with them your experience of the Cross. My little one, share with them your life. It is living testimonies of my Son's grace that touches and awakens hearts. Tell them to allow me to reveal to them the love of Jesus Crucified. It is only this love that has the power to transform. It is when each of my consecrated priests unite themselves, through my heart, to Love Crucified that the hearts of the faithful will be opened. –8/5/09, Simple Path, #138, p. 370.
A Gift from the Holy Spirit
Spiritual Motherhood is not a program, nor a new apostolate nor something you do following a set of rules. Spiritual maternity is at the core of the feminine heart. This holds true for all women, either married or single, professional and/or domestic, religious or consecrated. We become spiritual mothers as we come to know intimately the passionate love of our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, through the power of the Cross and choose to respond, in complete abandonment, with our whole heart. Spiritual Motherhood is a GIFT from the Holy Spirit and grows as the Spirit heals our feminine hearts and transforms us to become a new creation.
Only Living as Victims in Christ can Holy Relationships Between Spiritual Mothers and Priests Exist
The Church is discovering the urgent need for priests to have such spiritual mothers. In order for these relationships to be fully from the Lord, both the spiritual mother and priest must be willing to accept this call to enter the depth of their hearts and identify the wounds and disorders they carry. They must be willing to do the “work” required in the Simple Path so that the Holy Spirit can heal and purify them. As Christ purifies hearts in the fire of His Sacred Heart, He restores men and women’s ability to truly love and compliment each other in the service of the Kingdom. In our brokenness, we may find it hard to believe that a mother-son relationship between women and priests is possible or even desirable. We tend to think only of dangers that stem from our fallen nature, but we also need to believe that Christ at Calvary poured out His Spirit to make all things new. The Lord continues to raise up relationships between spiritual mothers and priests, but this is possible only to the extent that they are truly victim souls, One with The Victim. Mary went to Calvary with St. John and wants to take every priest to Her Crucified Son.
Spiritual mothers in Mary, the Mother of Sorrows, become God’s source of strength and encouragement for priests to become ONE with The Crucified:
Walk with Me in My passion. Through Mary, My Mother, I received the strength and zeal I needed to continue to the Cross… She was not only My consolation but also My strength. My Mother knew and accepted My mission… In Her great and pure love of God, she encouraged Me and brought Me to the Cross. It was she that encouraged Me to begin My mission at the Wedding at Cana… Do you see the importance of holy mothers for My priests, who are living images of My Mother? My priests need these holy mothers to help strengthen and encourage them. –2/20/09, Simple Path, #137, p. 369
The Work of Spiritual Mothers: take the Life of Christ Crucified to Priests
Therefore, a spiritual mother must be a mother of the cross, a victim soul who lays down her life for love of her spiritual children. The Ven. Archbishop Luis Martinez understood the power of spiritual mothers and encouraged Conchita to persevere in love:
“You, too, like Jesus, must love the Father on behalf of all your children and for all the souls that God has linked with you through the outstanding grace of spiritual maternity…. Some of your children will love the Father with many limitations. You must supply for them. Perhaps some of them—may the Lord not permit it!—will never love. You must love for them. With what desire you must try to love for all in order that the Father may not lack even a spark of love from your spiritual family.” –Simple Path p. 371
The following letter, written by a spiritual mother to her priest/son, reveals the work required of spiritual mothers: reparation, encouragement, love, tender correction, teach them how to “suffer with”, guide them to live their victimhood, suffer for them and with them, bring them to the foot of the Cross with Mary:
THANK YOU for allowing me the honor of being the custodian, as one with Mary the Mother of the Cross, of your priestly vocation as your spiritual mother. This is something that I treasure and take so seriously. THANK YOU for blessing me and my family through who you are as Christ's ordained priest/victim!!!!
My dear father/son, through the words you write me, I see the beauty of what God is doing in your heart! I see the power of the Holy Spirit working the transformation of your heart! I have been thanking and praising God for His mercy and love being lavished upon you!
Yes, the Cross is the place of our deep purification, of our dying to self, of our letting go of our control, of our titles, of our limited way of thinking… And it is also the place where we enter the most profound intimacy with God!
Father persevere in SUFFERING ALL WITH JESUS, and you will enter the fire of the Holy Spirit in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Continue to PERSEVERE as I read that you are doing. Yes, you are not walking alone, I am with you, and you are with me. We are helping each other, as Mary and St John, to die as ONE with Christ, so that we can become the SAINTS He created us to be!!!!!! The new men and women of the Kingdom of Christ!!
My heart is filled with EXCITEMENT and ANTICIPATION knowing how powerfully the Spirit is working in you. TRUST! TRUST! TRUST! You are becoming a new man, the new Adam!!!
May you always be consoled in remembering that I am sustaining you as God's “hidden force.” I pray for you daily before the Blessed Sacrament, and it is a great honor offering my life as a living sacrifice with Jesus and Mary for you! I am greatly consoled and also sustained through your prayers and priesthood!! THANK YOU AGAIN!!
I humbly receive your priestly blessing and I send you my maternal love through our Mother of Sorrows! –Simple Path p.390-391.
May all of God’s spiritual mothers band together as God’s holy warriors of love with Mary to raise up a transformed priesthood of Christ’s “apostles of light” for the Church and world:
You, My little ones, are the consolation of My suffering Heart because you each have united yourselves to Mary, the Mother of God and the Mother of all. As I gaze at each of you, I see her beauty radiating from you. Allow her to form each of you to perfection.
I need you, My faithful ones, to bring life to My Missionaries of the Cross. It is My hidden martyrs of love, in perfect union with the Queen of Martyrs, that will raise up My Apostles of Light. Know that I have taken My abode in each of your hearts; therefore, radiate the humility and purity of My Mother.
Do not grow weary in your hidden lives of suffering all with Me, for you are My holy remnant that God the Father will use to purify My Church and pierce the darkness penetrating Her. Therefore, go forth, My daughters, as My holy warriors with Mary to seize the dragon and cast him into hell.
I bless you with My Precious Blood and seal you with the power of My Cross. –4/1/11, Simple Path,#141 p. 385.
🔗Teachings on Spiritual Motherhood, text, audio, video.
🔗Eucharistic Adoration for the Sanctification of Priests and Spiritual Motherhood –Document of Cong. for Clergy
🔗See 'Spiritual motherhood' in Chapter 7 of the Simple Path.