The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work... We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
The renowned prayer of Bishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador was one of my mother's "classics", which she loved to return to time and again. My mother died of pancreatic cancer on Tuesday. When it happened, I sat, stared into space and cradled a stiff whisky. I tried to push away familiar memories of mama, but they stayed stubbornly put. Gradually, the words of Bishop Romero's prayer seeped through, a glimpse of hope and peace in feelings of black despair and dull resentment.
It dawned on me then that mama loved Bishop Romero's reflection because it epitomised who she was and how she lived every moment of her unassuming yet crucially relevant life. Bishop Romero continues: We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realising that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. Mama never had any pretensions about her role in this world. She was quite a shrinking violet in her way: I remember her saying how she shied away from responsibility at work (before she got married - this was in the good old days when women stopped working as soon as they tied the knot) and how she would resolutely turn away from stories of suffering.
Yet she had very clear ideas about what was right and wrong and of our sole purpose in this world: to serve others, especially the needy.
No question about that, as there was no fuss about going the extra mile, and loving until it hurt, in the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In her no-nonsense manner, my mother definitely made a difference, from the time she volunteered at the creche (children's home) as a young woman (her favourite protégé still visits) right down until her death, when she left behind a husband and four daughters.
Having a mother like that proved to be a hard act to follow. Gripped by the boringly typical callowness and self-absorption of youth, it was only when I heard other people praise mama that I realised I was onto a good thing. And I increasingly felt I could never measure up, because mama simply always went cheerfully out of her way, despite my frequent strictures about assertiveness and learning how to say no.
As I grew older, my work with refugees led me further afield, but ever closer to my mother. Why? First of all, I knew I would never have had a passion for social justice if it were not for my parents. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities, continues Bishop Romero. Right enough: My sisters and I all try to be there for others in need, a commitment expressed in different ways in line with our professional expertise. Everything I achieved was for mama, and I loved telling her about it because she was so proud of me, as she was of her other daughters. Mind you, proud in a discreet way that only we would know, from the beam splitting her face and the lift in her voice when she said: "Really, you did that?! Ahhhh!"
Mama spent a good part of her life being there for us, waiting for each one as we trudged home from school or work, to feed us and sit down at the kitchen table to quiz us about our day. Every day, no matter if we were sulky and unresponsive by the end of it. When I figured this out, I thought it only fair to share everything I did with her and I gained so much from this. While working at Vatican Radio, I interviewed one of my heroes, the renowned French author Dominque Lapierre. Straight after I called my mother, hysterically shrieking, "Ma, guess whom I interviewed?!" Her immediate reply: "Dominque Lapierre of course; only that would make you so happy. Well, what did he say?" And she was as thrilled as I was. I continued filling her in when I worked in Rome, in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. My mother had never sat down to a computer before I left, then she became quite adept at e-mail and addicted to solitaire.
It was when she felt recurring back pain as she played yet another game of solitaire that she went for medical checks. And found she had cancer. In the 10 months she was ill, mama perfected her technique of being a woman for others: She never grumbled even once, about her pain or about her fate, she was sweet and funny to the last. I am happy to say the rest of her family did her credit: We played the game, complete with trips to Gozo and Lourdes, which she loved.
Now mama is gone and she leaves a void. But as I feel my aching loss, I am also conscious of a certainty: She is still here, and here she will stay. She lives in all of us and thank God for that. Returning to the final words of Bishop Romero's prayer: We are prophets of a future not our own. My mother is one such prophet.