Great Mothers

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There was a lady from a small village in the Mogilev region of the Russian Empire, in what is now Belarus. Her name was Bryna. In her youth, she was engaged to a man called Herschel, who left for America with promises and dreams. A year later, he sent money for her passage. In those days, before visa requirements, she boarded a ship to join him, carrying nothing but hope for a better life. They married and settled in Amsterdam, New York; not the glamorous city, but a small mill town. Bryna gave Herschel seven children: six daughters and finally a son. They named him Issur, though everyone else called him Izzy.

But the American dream turned into an American nightmare. Herschel, who had been a horse trader in Russia, became a ragman in America, collecting junk and scraps to sell. What little money he made, he spent on alcohol and on gambling with his friends. He was known throughout the neighborhood as a troublemaker and a bully. Worse still, he was cruel at home, so cold that he never once called his wife by her name. He addressed her only as, “Hey you.”

The family lived in crushing poverty. Bryna, who couldn’t read or write, worked her fingers raw, taking in laundry and doing whatever job she could find, but it was never enough. The children often went hungry. She would send Izzy to the Jewish butcher with a simple request: “Please give me the bones you don’t need anymore.” She would take those discarded bones and boil them for hours, making a thin soup that kept her family alive for days.

Years later, her son, by then known as Kirk Douglas, remembered those days. When it was a good day, he said, “We would eat omelets made with water. When it was a bad day, we wouldn’t eat at all.” But Bryna never gave up. She held her family together through sheer force of will, and she believed in her son with a fierceness that defied their circumstances. When Izzy talked about becoming an actor—a ridiculous dream for a poor kid from a ragman’s family—she encouraged him.

Issur Demsky left that small town and became Kirk Douglas. He became a Hollywood legend, starring in classics like Spartacus, Paths of Glory, and Lust for Life. But he never forgot where he came from, and he never forgot who made it possible. In 1949, when Kirk formed his own film production company, he gave it a name: Bryna Productions. Not after himself; after his mother.

In 1958, Bryna Productions produced—or released—The Vikings, an epic film starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. It was one of the year’s biggest movies. Kirk decided his mother needed to see something. He took her by the arm and led her to Times Square in New York City. Among the flashing lights and enormous advertisements, he showed her a massive poster that said: “Bryna Presents The Vikings.” Her name. The woman who couldn’t read. The woman who boiled bones for soup. The woman who was called “Hey you” by her husband. Her name was on a billboard in Times Square.

Bryna Demsky burst into tears. Perhaps the first tears of pure joy she’d ever cried in her difficult life. That December, just months after seeing her name in lights, Bryna passed away at the age of 74. Kirk was with her until the very end. Her last words to him were simple and loving: “Izzy, my son, don’t be afraid. This happens to everyone.” Even in death, she was still trying to comfort him.

Kirk Douglas lived to be 103 years old. He became one of Hollywood’s greatest stars, a producer, a philanthropist, and father of actor Michael Douglas. But until his death in 2020, he always said the same thing: everything he achieved was because of his mother. The woman who couldn’t write her own name gave the world a legend. The woman who had nothing gave her son everything. The son who became a star made sure the world remembered her name.

Every film that bore the title “A Bryna Production” was a love letter from a grateful son to the mother who believed in him when he had nothing but dreams. She deserved to see her name in lights, and her son made sure she did.

From this story, we can be mindful in our prayer of how our earthly life is short and fleeting. We have to take advantage of the noble things of the earth so as to win heaven. We might not be rich in this world, but we can be rich before God, and that’s the sort of richness that we have to try to acquire.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where dust and moth consume and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:19–20). Our passage upon this earth is a time of testing. Our Lord Himself has given this particular time to us, and we have to try and make use of everything: the difficulties, the challenges, the crosses, the failures.

St. Paul to the Hebrews says, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek for the city which is to come” (Heb. 13:14). That’s what it’s all about. On a certain day, Our Lord will come to settle accounts with us, to determine how well or ill we have administered His gifts. His gifts include intelligence, health, material goods, a capacity for friendship, the power to give joy to those around us.

Our Lord will come only once. Perhaps when we least expect Him. Like a thief in the night. Like lightning flashing across the sky. He wants to find us well prepared. If we tie ourselves down to this world, forgetting that our end is in heaven, that can lead us to live a disoriented life of complete idiocy. How important it is that we get to a retreat once a year, that we’re reminded of those eternal truths and never lose sight of them, which can easily happen.

We have to walk with our feet on the ground, taking care to safeguard our future and the future of those who depend on us. But we can’t forget that we are pilgrims, no more than actors in a show. St. John Chrysostom says, “No one is permanently made king or wealthy, since at the end of the performance, we will all find ourselves as paupers.” Worldly goods are but the means for us to attain the goal which Our Lord has pointed out for us. Those worldly goods can never become the be-all and the end-all of our existence. Our life on earth is short and limited.

Perhaps we think of death in terms of something remote, as if we will live forever. But Our Lord tells us that our days are numbered. We’re in the hands of God. Within a few years—maybe a few months or a few days, perhaps not that many—we will find ourselves face to face with Him.

Meditating on our final end can motivate us to sanctify our work, redeeming the time, as we strive to make up for lost time. It should help us to take advantage of our circumstances in order to make reparation for sins and to become detached from earthly goods.

One day, like any other day, will be our last day on earth. Today, thousands of people have died, or will die, in the most diverse circumstances. All those people were probably unaware that their time was up, that they would have no more time to improve. Some have died with their hearts immersed in things of little importance in terms of eternal life. Others have died who have been involved in exactly the same activities, but have kept their sights on God. It’s these latter people who have come into possession of that marvelous treasure which neither dust nor moth consumes.

St. Paul tells the Colossians, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on the earth” (Col. 3:1–2). Things of the world last only a relatively short period of time. They can’t fulfill the longings of the human heart. The Book of Wisdom says, “The life of man on earth is brief. The greater part of it can be spent in pain and suffering. Every life passes like the wind. Barely a trace is left behind.”

In the best of cases, one might amass a great fortune, only for it to be left to others. What does all this pain and suffering add up to? Is it all for nothing? The Book of Ecclesiastes says, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Eccles. 1:2). In the face of this emptiness and inconsistency, all this pointlessness, God is the rock of our salvation. The Psalms say, “Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise” (Ps. 95:2).

At the same time, the human heart has a tremendous capacity to seek the things of the world without paying any attention to the transcendent meaning of life. The human heart tends to become attached to worldly goods as the one and only goal in life, forgetting what is really important.

Our Lord takes advantage of a question about inheritance to teach us about the true worth of things in the light of eternity. He says there was once a rich man, who having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” And he said, “This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them. And I will say to my soul, ‘My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come. Take things easy. Eat, drink, have a good time.’” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul. And this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” (Luke 12:16–20).

So it is when someone stores up treasures for himself instead of becoming rich in the sight of God. Our Lord brings up the subject of death, of our own death, to make His point. He says the land of this man brought forth plentifully, and he planned about how he was going to increase all of those things. Then he has to hear the strong words from Our Lord: “Fool.” It’s about the only time in scripture that that word is used.

Our Lord teaches us that putting our hearts into the pursuit of wealth and worldly well-being is foolishness. What we have to strive for is to be rich before God, like Bryna was, in spite of all the difficulties. Neither happiness nor authentic human life itself are founded on worldly goods. We’re told in St. Luke that “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

The rich man discloses his value system in his mental dialogue. He sees himself in the story in a very secure position because he has great resources. He bases his stability and his happiness on his wealth. For him, as for many people, living is a matter of enjoying as much pleasure as possible. It is to do as little as need be, to eat, to drink, to have a good time, to lay up ample goods for many years. That’s his ideal. In his life, there’s no reference to God, much less to other people. He sees no need to share his goods with others less fortunate than himself.

How does he plan to maintain his thoroughly materialistic lifestyle? “I will store up for myself.” Yet in the end, all his calculations are for nothing. The things of this world give a fragile and insufficient security, since our lives will never be fulfilled without God.

During our time of prayer, we can ask ourselves: where is my heart? Because we know that our destination is heaven, we have to make positive and concrete acts of detachment with regard to what we own and what we use. We can ask ourselves: how much do we share our goods with the needy?

One criterion that St. Josemaria liked to give to families was that if you’re spending money on a celebration, or a holiday, or some special occasion, make sure a portion of what you spent is given to some needy family or to some worthwhile cause. It fosters a social consciousness, something we have to infect people with all over the world, particularly our children; to think about others, particularly in moments when we’re having a good time.

We can ask ourselves: how much time and wealth do we contribute to apostolic works? Could we be doing a little bit more? Are we working at being rich before God? Are we using those difficult circumstances that life may have dealt us, with the will of God, like Bryna, to produce great people, like her son, who go on to build up the culture of the world?

At the moment of death, the state of our soul is fixed forever. Afterwards, it’s impossible to change. The Book of Ecclesiastes says the destiny which awaits us is the consequence of our behavior on earth. “If a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie” (Eccles. 11:3).

This is the reason for Our Lord’s frequent warnings to be on watch, to be vigilant. Death is not the end of our existence, but the beginning of a new life. Christians cannot write off or minimize the importance of our temporal existence, since it is the very means by which we prepare for our definitive life with God in heaven.

To yield a rich harvest before God, we have to sanctify this same ordinary life and the use of material goods. Every other lifestyle is built upon sand. The Psalms say, “Surely every man stands as a mere breath. Surely man goes about as a shadow. A man heaps up, and knows not who will gather” (Ps. 39:5–6). Inasmuch as the goods of this world are intended for the glory of God, we should use them with a sense of detachment, not complaining either when these goods may be lacking. The absence of some good, as in Bryna’s case, if it is God’s will, should not take away our peace. We should know how to be happy in times of prosperity and in adversity.

Whether we are rich or poor, we should share what we have with others, by creating new jobs—if that is in our power—by promoting works of culture and formation, by giving generously to the good works of the Church. A very good question for many people to ask themselves is: where would I be without the Church? All the value systems, good things the Church has given to me—education, formation, care of my soul. We have to propagate that as much as possible, and to bring that formation to the ends of the earth.

By considering our death, we also learn how to make good use of the days that remain to us. St. Josemaria said, “My children, the world is slipping through our fingers. We cannot lose any time, for time is short.” I understand St. Paul very well when he writes to the Corinthians, “Tempus breve est.” How brief is the time of our sojourn upon this earth! For a coherent Christian, these words ought to ring true in the depths of the soul. They are a reproach for a lack of generosity and a constant invitation to loyalty. Truly, we have so little time to love, to give, to do penance.

We could ask ourselves: are we going to allow our hearts to be tied to the things of this world? Meditation on the eternal truths is a good antidote against sin, and a real help towards giving a Christian meaning to life. We should renew our resolution to expose ourselves to those eternal truths in a regular way, particularly yearly on a retreat, so that those ideas don’t escape our conscience and our thoughts. Those thoughts can inspire us to pay proper attention to our daily work, to our relations with other people, and to our duties in charity towards those in need. That will be our way to heaven. In that way, we will be truly rich before God.

We can ask Our Lady that she might help us to make good use of our circumstances, situations that God has willed for us to grow in holiness, to sow seeds, to give ourselves to the formation of our children and our grandchildren, and to really have that great yearning in our mind and heart to be rich in relation to the things of God.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.