Motherhood can be so difficult. The ups and downs of motherhood can make you feel like you’re on a rollercoaster. One minute everything is seemingly perfect and then it all falls apart. I love to read books about great mothers who figured it out. None of them, sans Mother Mary, were perfect, but everyday they started new and they tried to be better.
There aren’t many books about Catholic mothers surprisingly. I feel as though most known female saints are either virgin martyrs or nuns. That being said, the Catholic saintly mothers we do know about have said some truly inspiring things.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Get my full disclosure here.
This post combines some of my favorite motherhood/parenting quotes. Some of the quotes don’t even come from mothers or women for that matter, but I do feel that anyone who has a mother knows what a good mother is and what a good mother is not.
Enjoy…
“Wash the plate. Not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next.” -St. Teresa of Calcutta
“A married woman must, when called upon, quit her devotions to God at the altar to find Him in her household affairs.” -St. Frances of Rome
“Give me just one generation of Good Catholic Mothers, and I will change the world.” -St. John Chrysostom
“Not only a woman’s days but her nights. Not only her mind, but her body must share in the calvary of motherhood. That is why women have a surer understanding of the doctrine of redemption than men have. They have to associate the risk of death with the life in childbirth and to understand the sacrifice of self to another through the many months preceding it.” -Venerable Fulton Sheen
“If we want to enjoy motherhood more, we actually need to enjoy Christ more. There isn’t life in motherhood. There’s life in Christ and that overflows in our motherhood.” -Emily Jensen
“There is no greater good in all the world than motherhood. The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation.” -James E. Faust
“What is God intended motherhood to be hard… for a purpose? What if God, in his wisdom, ordained this particular hard for you, Mama? This strong-willed child… There sleepless nights… This many kids in these many years. These limits, these parameters. This distinct motherhood.” -Lauren Weir
“Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.” -Pope Paul VI
“I’m not going to rush my children through their days or hurry to take care of the home I love. I refuse to be too busy to live slowly through the life I created.” -Shelby Dersa
“The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of a virtuous life.” -St. John Chrysostom
“Let your prayers be common. For indeed a house is a little Church. This it is possible for us by becoming good husbands and wives, to surpass all others.” -St. John Chrysostom
“When we had our children, our ideas changed somewhat. We lived only for them. They were all our happiness, and we never found any except in them. In short, nothing was too difficult, and the world was no longer a burden to us. For me, our children were a great compensation, so I wanted to have a lot of them in order to raise them for Heaven.” -St. Zelie Martin
“God’s most extraordinary work is most often done by ordinary people in the seeming obscurity of a home and family.” -Neal A. Maxwell
“Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that in the world to come you will be united in perfect love.” -St. John Chrysostom
“Now we must help each other to get to Heaven.” -Blessed Charles of Austria, to his wife the day after their wedding
“Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the soul of men and women.” -St. Gianna Molla
“Love and Sacrifice are closely linked, like the sun and the light. We cannot love without suffering and we cannot suffer without love.”-St. Gianna Molla
“Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be, and becoming that person.” -St. Therese of Lisieux
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” -St. Augustine
“In all the free time you have, once you have finished your duties of state, you should kneel down and pray the Rosary. Pray the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament or before a crucifix.” -St. Padre Pio
“The secret of happiness is to love moment by moment and to thank God for all the He, in His goodness, sends to us day after day.” -St. Gianna Beretta Molla
“Practice patience toward everyone and especially toward yourself. Never be disturbed because of your imperfections, but always get up bravely after a fall.” -St. Francis de Sales
“If God is the center of your life, no words are necessary. Your mere presence will touch hearts” -St. Vincent de Paul
“Don’t despair over your shortcomings. Start over each day. You make spiritual progress by beginning again and again.” -St. Francis de Sales
“If you wake up feeling fragile remember that God is not, and then trust him to be everything you need today.” -C.S. Lewis
“One earns Paradise with one’s daily task.” -St. Gianna Molla
I hope that these quotes are inspiring for you. Leave a comment below if you have more quotes that motivate and inspire you to be a better a mother.