I was 19 when my then-boyfriend and I found out we were expecting a baby.

As I imagine most teenage girls react after they’ve witnessed their own pregnancy test turn positive, I remember sitting at the foot of my bed with my head in my hands and a flurry of anxious thoughts swirling around my brain.

I’m too young to be a mother, I thought. My life is over now. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Little did I know, this was precisely the means through which the Lord was going to draw me and my boyfriend (now-husband) to Himself. Through welcoming this new little life into the world, we were going to find our own in Him.

Becoming a mother prepared and disposed me to understanding the beauty of Our Lord on the cross. One day, gazing upon the Crucifix, I saw in Him a Love that mirrored and then completely surpassed the love I had for my own daughter. It pierced me to the heart. So, I set myself before Him that I too may be conformed to that powerfully loving image of His Son. And at the Easter Vigil 2024, I was baptised and we were both welcomed into the Catholic Church.

Now I understood the human mission to be the pursuit of Perfect Love (this, being the Trinity). And I understood that this Love is ever-pursuing us also, always willing and always ready to pour Itself out for us and into us that we may be perfectly united with Him evermore.

I was hungry and I pondered how God would possibly accomplish this great work in me. I surely had a long way to go. And it just so happened that the Lord revealed to me that He would grow me in His Love through the means which first brought me to Him and brought Him to us: motherhood.

Through the daily surrender and sacrifice that so marvellously reflects that of Christ on the cross, motherhood is a sure means of union with our God.

Every woman is called to motherhood, whether that be physical motherhood (as I found myself in) or spiritual motherhood. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body shows, both, men and women that our bodies reveal something fundamental about our nature.

For us women, our bodies reveal that we were created for bringing forth and nurturing life. This will look different for each woman. Whether you are called to physical motherhood or spiritual motherhood, the principle remains the same: as women, we are created in the image of God the Creator of all things, and He invites us to partner with Him in creation in an intimate and profound way.

And this motherhood is the means through which God intends to save us. As 1 Timothy 2:15 says, “But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

How beautiful is the heart of Our Lord to write our path of salvation into our very bodies! Into our own biology!

I am still a new mother, and an even newer Catholic, so I am in no place to tell you how to parent or to offer my own personal perspectives on current affairs in the Church. That is not the point of this blog.

My intention for this blog is that I may write for you — woman to woman, mother to mother — and that the Lord may allow what I’ve written to nourish and uplift your spirit so that you may feel strengthened to go about your own Vocation as a mother and a mystic. What these two things look like for you will be entirely dependent on your own walk with God and the unique gifts and graces He has bestowed upon you. But I believe these two things are commonalities for all of us.

Because, as women, we are called to be mothers; and, as Christians, we are called to be mystics.