“You’ve had enough orange soda, young man!”

On Mother’s Day, Moms finally get to enjoy some of the fruits of their labor. The children bearing that fruit do so as a result of the combined love and discipline Mom taught them—many times, with just a look.

Those looks are not only good, they’re scriptural. Think how many times Our Mother Mary showed them to Jesus. As you pray a Mother’s Day rosary to her, meditate on the looks she must have given him throughout the mysteries:

The look of love when Jesus was born;

The look of motherly angst when, upon finding her boy in the Temple, she chastised him for running off without telling his parents;

The look of “Do your Mother a favor” at the Cana wedding party;

The look of sorrow as her brutalized son was dying;

The look of unbridled joy upon seeing him alive again.

Although my own mother passed away when I was a child, her good looks throughout the decade I knew her still live in my memory—and in a few photographs of her showing them to me (one of them displayed here, circa 1960).

So, for this Mother’s Day weekend, here’s a (mercifully) brief, lighthearted bit of doggerel to celebrate those long good looks our mothers gave us:

A Mother’s Good Looks

They may not be photogenic.

If they could maim you’d be quite pathetic.

But when aimed in your eyes,

Mom’s looks cut you to size,

Exhibiting the following aesthetics:

–quizzical as a professor,

–forgiving as a confessor;

–cutting as a critic,

–decisive as a statistic;

–Insulting as a comedian,

–convulsive as a tragedian;

–angry as a Hun,

–then forgiving as a nun.

And dark though her moods may be,

She’ll lighten up once she can see,

Her efforts to save you

Bore fruit from the paid-dues

Of these good looks your mother gave thee.

–Tom Andel