A mother's faith: Readers share how mom’s influence shaped their lives

Mother’s Day is May 13. Julie and Dylan Mercado, members of St. Henry Parish in Dayton, Ohio, enjoy a warm afternoon at Ellenberger Park in Indianapolis. She is the daughter of Holy Spirit parishioner Diana Hay of Indianapolis, who is the executive assistant and event planner for SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral Parish in Indianapolis. (Photo by Mary Ann Wyand)

By John Shaughnessy

A mother’s love can make all the difference in the life of her child.

So can her faith.

When The Criterion asked our readers to share their stories of how their mother lives her faith and influences their faith, we received beautiful tributes of how a mother’s love and faith touches and changes her children’s lives.

As Mother’s Day nears, we present four of those stories. And to all the mothers who bless their children in so many ways with their love, care and dedication, we wish you a happy Mother’s Day filled with extensive rest, complete pampering and God’s continued blessings.

Music lessons

Arlene Locke made sure that every one of her nine children took music lessons. She even sat next to them when they practiced on the piano, making suggestions and offering encouragement.

She had the same approach to sharing her faith.

“She was always teaching us,” says Francine Bray, one of Locke’s children. “Her whole life centered around three guideposts: her faith, her family and her music. From our first days, she was teaching us about the love of God and our Catholic faith.”

Their mother combined her music and faith to teach her children one of the greatest lessons of her life, Bray says. That lesson came near the end of Locke’s life, a life that was marked by singing and playing the organ at several churches in Indianapolis.

“In 1995, she was diagnosed with memory loss,” says Bray, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Indianapolis. “She was losing who she was.”

By 2001, her children knew they had to place their mother in a nursing home—one of the most painful

decisions of their lives. Yet from that heartbreak came another powerful lesson from their mother.

“Throughout Mom’s life, she had made meditation and prayer a daily priority,” Bray says. “Until she moved to the health care facility, she attended Mass on a daily basis, arriving early so that she could meditate on God’s love. Following her move into health care, she was no longer able to attend daily Mass. But when we did take her, despite her impaired memory, she remembered and recited all of the prayers and sang the songs.

“Our time spent with her during those years was very precious. I’m not sure whether or not she knew that she was teaching us about her faith in God—giving without question, finding peace and embracing solitude, and that our lives are prayers.

“We watched her slow decline. However, she never complained and we believe that the peace and joy she found in prayer and meditation throughout her life

sustained her in her final, long journey. She traveled it with faith, peace and dignity, teaching us about faith,

family and music until she returned to the Lord [on] Feb. 5, 2007. We know she rests in peace.”

A mother’s touch

Judy Davis-Fuller sometimes wonders what she would have done if she hadn’t received her mother’s blessing to become a Catholic.

She just knows that her mother’s blessing finally freed her to follow the dream she had for years.

“Just before she died of a malignant brain tumor, I told her I was looking into becoming a Catholic very seriously,” Davis-Fuller says. “She was Methodist, and I wasn’t sure what she would say. She said I had to do what felt right to me and do whatever would make me happy. That was a large leap for her.”

Davis-Fuller started the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program in

September 2002 at St. Michael Parish in Greenfield.

“The old myths I had grown up hearing about Catholics kept running through my head,” she recalls. “But seeing the dedication and faith of the instructors, hearing their lessons, their patience in answering my numerous questions, something in me snapped and I knew in my heart that I was making the right decision. On April 19, 2003, I was baptized, confirmed and received the Eucharist for the first time. I admit that I cried through most of the ceremony.”

Knowing the gift her mother had given to her, Davis-Fuller wanted to share that gift with her son, John. By 2003, John and his wife, Julie, had two children, Olivia and Evan.

Julie was Catholic, but John wasn’t. His mother knew that in the spring of 2004, Olivia would receive first Communion. Davis-Fuller wanted her son to be able to share fully in that milestone moment so she had a talk with him.

“I quite simply told John that I thought it would be wonderful if he could go up with Julie and Olivia for Olivia’s First Communion instead of having to sit in the pew and not be able to receive the most precious gift of the Church,” she says. “I have to admit that my daughter-in-law had tried, in vain, to get my son to convert for many years, but apparently he just wasn’t ready.

“About a week later, my son called to tell me that he had attended his first RCIA class. The following April, he was brought into the Catholic Church. Of course, I cried through nearly the entire service. And the following month, he and Julie walked together with Olivia for her first Communion. What a beautiful moment that was.”

Both mother and son now teach in the RCIA program.

“I cannot imagine my life now without the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as the center of my being,” Davis-Fuller says. “I thank them every morning for seeing me safely through the night, for my family and friends, but mostly for the unconditional love and the pure joy I feel at finally being where I am. I am honored to be Catholic. I try to spread God’s love to anyone who will listen.”

A mother’s unusual rule of courtship

Growing up on a farm in southern Indiana, Marcella Smith loved to hear the stories that her mother shared about her own youth.

“I never met my Grandma Daily, but my mother told me a lot about her,” Smith says. “Often, she would harness the horse and hitch up the buggy and go to church. The daily rosary was a part of their family life. My mother told me that if a suitor came over to court a daughter and it was time to say the rosary, he was expected to participate.”

Smith’s father obviously passed the rosary courtship ritual. Smith’s mother passed along the importance of the rosary to her six children.

“The daily rosary was a part of my childhood years,” recalls Smith, now a member of Holy Spirit Parish in Indianapolis. “That

tradition I also try to keep. Our children remember many trips where we would say the rosary. One of them remarked, ‘It probably saved our lives a few times.’

“Sometimes, we were driving pretty fast,” she says with a laugh.

“Faith was a big part of my mother’s life and she lived it each day. When passing a church, she always blessed herself. She was always there whenever anyone needed her. I thank God for her example, strong faith and caring.”

Putting a shine on faith

The smell of Pledge can take Norb Schott back in time, back to his childhood when his mother had him polish the wood furniture in their home to make it glow for the neighbors who gathered for the weekly “block rosary” on the south side of Indianapolis.

“The block rosary was every Tuesday, like seven in the evening,” Schott recalls. “The families took turns. Every woman had to clean up their house before the neighbors came over. My mom made me dust in all the darnedest places, all the places she couldn’t reach.”

Still, Schott admires how far his mother’s reach extended to her eight children in

matters of faith.

He recalls walking with his mother one day when the bells of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church rang at noon, and she told him, “I will teach you how to say the Angelus.”

He remembers how she put her coat over her house dress, piled her children into the family’s stick-shift Chevy and headed for the noon Mass at Holy Rosary Church.

“Her faith was part of everyday life,” says Schott, now a member of St. Paul Parish in Greencastle. “It was a quiet faith that included taking care of your family, praying the rosary, going to Mass and

being attentive to your neighbors. By just watching her, I sensed her relationship with God was real. It let me know that God was there to pray to. And what we did at church was continued at home. There was no

disconnect. It was real.” †