A Love That Keeps Expanding: Mary Ann Mahoney's Life of Spiritual Motherhood
From a mission field in China to a preschool classroom, one Spirit of Christ parishioner's love for others keeps finding new places to go.
Mary Ann Mahoney can still picture the pew: Second from the left, Shrine of St. Anne Parish in Arvada, 9:00 a.m. Mass every Sunday of her childhood, the Christmas Day blizzard of 1982 included.
Her family's fidelity to never missing a single Sunday Mass set the pattern for a life that has since taken her from a Chinese mission field to a preschool classroom and now toward a vocation many Catholics may have never even heard of. If you ask Mahoney what she does at Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada, she'll tell you about falling in love with Jesus at sixteen, and how everything else — the teaching, the tutoring, the youth ministry, the music, even the quiet work behind the sound booth as an A/V volunteer — follows from that one answer.
"Everything about my view of God changed when I went on a Teens Encounter Christ weekend as a junior in high school," Mahoney said. "I fell in love with Jesus. The fact that he loved me blew my mind, and I wanted to do everything in my power to show him how much I loved him."
That love sent her to China a few years later as a missionary, encouraged by the late Monsignor Ken Leone. She planned to stay just long enough to "get that ‘missionary thing’ out of my blood," she said. She stayed six years.
When she came home, Mahoney prayed about where to land and felt pulled toward high school youth ministry. That was 25 years ago, and she's still there. That same pull toward accompaniment eventually led her into OCIA ministry, walking alongside adults becoming Catholic. She plays guitar at various retreats and at Mass at Spirit of Christ once a month. When not serving at Spirit of Christ, Mahoney teaches preschool, something she describes as a calling first and a job second.
Ask her why she keeps saying yes to one more ministry, one more commitment, and she doesn't make it complicated.
"To whom much has been given, much will be expected," she said, referencing Luke 12:48. "God has given me a lot, and the least I can do is use all he has given me to serve him by serving others. Also, selfishly, serving God brings me so much joy! Who wouldn't want that joy!"
Underneath all of the teaching, the music, the missions and the ministry is a discernment that's reshaping how Mahoney understands her entire life. Four years ago, Father Trevor Lontine asked if she had ever considered the vocation of consecrated virginity. She hadn't. She didn't even know what it was.
"You certainly can't discern something you don't even understand," she said. "I began to explore what it was, and I felt like I was reading what I had been called to all along."
Mahoney had fallen in love with Jesus at sixteen and assumed, in the ordinary way, that she'd eventually marry and raise a family. What she found instead was deep satisfaction in loving children, serving the Church and loving Jesus.
"Perhaps the biggest revelation is that God desires me," she said. "I never felt like a man would desire me enough to want to be my spouse, and now I realize Jesus has been saving me for himself all along."
That discovery also named why Mahoney felt like she’s always been a spiritual mother.
"I love my students, my nieces and nephews, my godchildren, and all children in my life with such a deep love," she said. "God has given me many, many spiritual children."
People close to Mahoney often describe her as a Martha with Mary's heart, quick to jump in and serve, slower to simply sit still. She doesn't disagree. Serving comes naturally to her; but her interior prayer life has taken years to build to where it is now. These days she tries to set aside time after morning prayer just to "be" with Jesus. She's increasingly drawn to Adoration chapels, especially the one at Spirit of Christ, where she stops in after work to read, rest or simply listen.
Mahoney traces much of her formation back to the priests who have walked with her over the decades, and that gratitude now fuels a steady prayer for more men to say yes to the priesthood. As she discerns consecrated virginity, her eyes have been opened to her own unexpected vocation, one she somehow already recognized, one she traces all the way back to a teenager in a pew, falling in love for the first time.
Congratulations, Mary Ann, for being named the Archbishop's Catholic Appeal Disciple of the Month!
