At some point in their preschool years, each of our children has discovered Mary and enjoyed her in a special way. As toddlers, they hug her, pat her and kiss her. They tell her they love her and they practice saying her name: “Mar-wee!”

But 1½-year-old Raphael has a special devotion to Our Lady of the herb garden. He’s spent great lengths of time embracing the statue. He wraps his pudgy arms around Mary’s torso, covers her face with well-meaning slobber and presses his cheek against her porcelain white face. I sometimes wonder if, somewhere beneath that serene expression, Mary is cringing and gritting her teeth at the sight of this chunky child clomping in her direction. But never once has she complained.

And then yesterday it finally happened.

“Raphael broke Mary!” an older child rushed in to report.

I stepped outside to survey the scene and found my Raphael sitting amidst the oregano, somewhat scraped and bewildered. Beside him was the body of the statue and there, a few paces away, was Our Lady’s head. As I stooped to pick up the pieces, Raphael righted himself and stood beside me with a wrinkled brow. I cradled Mary’s head in my hands and he patted it gently. Gabrielle, 3, added to the melancholic scene by repeating over and over again, “Oh, poor Mary. … Is she dead, Mama?”

As I packed away the broken statue, I couldn’t help but think that the idea of Mary suffering pain and enduring indignity for the love of her children is a familiar one.

Mary’s acceptance of God’s will, even when it included suffering for our sakes, began at the Annunciation. When the angel Gabriel appeared and asked her to be the Mother of God, she could not have anticipated the details of the pains that lay ahead, but still she answered with a simple Yes.

When I am in a frustrated and rebellious mood, I am sometimes tempted to think that Mary couldn’t possibly “get” my life. She had only one child, after all. One perfectly divine child at that. What does a woman like that know about motherly suffering?

Lots. So much, in fact, that the Church recognizes Our Lady of Sorrows, a feast devoted to Mary’s suffering, each Sept. 15. Mary’s seven sorrows include Simeon’s prophecy, the flight into Egypt, losing the Christ child in the Temple, meeting Jesus as he carried the cross, standing at the foot of the cross, receiving the body of Jesus and Christ’s burial.

The pains of my own motherhood pale in comparison to Mary’s. Endless loads of laundry, piles of dirty dishes, a preschooler with an aversion to potty training and a sassy 6-year-old might not be pleasant, but they are no crucifixion.

Like Mary, most of us enter the vocation of motherhood in blissful ignorance of exactly the kinds of sacrifice it will require. There are the pains of pregnancy, the infinite challenges of infancy, the frustrations of preschool years and the responsibility of educating and disciplining older children. And then there are the pains of letting grown-up children go, watching them make mistakes and sometimes seeing our best efforts fail to bear fruit.

As mother to us all, Mary knows the endless variety of motherly suffering better than anyone. Just as she did with Raphael’s rough handling, she bears them all with patient acceptance, dignity and grace.

With Our Lady’s help, may we strive to do the same.

Danielle Bean writes from

Belknap, New Hampshire.