A most beautiful song

CEBU, Philippines - One of the Italian songs that I learned in Rome and which I can still sing is entitled, “Mama.” A part of the lyrics goes: “Ma la canzone mia piu bella sei tu.” (But you are my most beautiful song).

“Mama” is the most beautiful song not only for Italians, but for each and every human being. Why?

Every human being was inside his or her mother’s womb for more or less nine months prior to birth. When the umbilical cord was cut, our mother nourished us mostly from her breast and only at times, if ever, aided by milk from a bottle. For all practical purposes, she was our first teacher and she was teaching us even while inside her womb; as whatever feelings and emotions she had were transmitted to the little life growing inside her.

No wonder at the foot of Rizal’s statue at a Madrid plaza are the words: “La madre cria el porvenir del pais.” Translation: “The mother creates the future of the country.”

So important is the mother to a person’s life that when Yahweh God sent His only begotten Son to save man, He coursed the Messiah through a mother – the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So sacred is the word “mother” to the Italian-descent Pope Francis that he was ashamed to hear that the US military’s biggest non-nuclear explosive was named the “Mother of All Bombs” (The Freeman, May 8, 2017, p. 34). His reason? “A mother gives life and this one gives death.”

On a personal note, let me share some memories of my mother. Whenever our father would whip us as punishment for some mischief, our mother would stretch her hand to parry the whip, to lessen its painful impact. Since boys are boys and there were times when she had to spank us, she would cry before the stick – or whatever instrument she’d use – would hit us.

This is one of the reasons for my filial devotion to the Blessed Virgin May, the ever Virgin Mother of God. For me the very sound of the word “Mama” alone is in itself already a most beautiful song.