First Reading: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Second Reading: 1 Jn 4:7-10
Gospel: John 15:9-17
Perhaps growing up you can remember your mom saying: “put your hat on” or “put a coat on before you go outside, otherwise you will get sick”. All good advice and more that mom gave to us…all out of love! As we celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday, we reflect on the love of a mother: pure, self-sacrificing, tender and lasting. A mother’s love is a projection of the love that our God has lavished on us. What mother doesn’t worry about their son or daughter, even though they are adults?
While growing up, my mom (and dad) helped me in so many ways, especially in teaching me the Catholic faith that I believe and live each day. Parents are always the first and best teachers of the faith. The Dominican sisters at St. John the Apostle school and Marist brothers at Union Catholic Boys High School, built upon the foundation that was laid by my parents. It is important to remember that no matter what our experiences in our spiritual growth, that it is God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is the active agent in making this growth happen.
This Sunday, we continue to read the 15th chapter of St. John’s gospel. The image of Jesus as the vine and us as the branches (from last Sunday)
is still fresh in our minds as we hear Jesus’s words:
Remain in my love. We see how important it is to stay connected to Jesus Christ- so we can be filled with spiritual vitality, energy and wisdom. This is why it is important to be faithful to a life of prayer, Scripture reading and reflection and the sacraments, especially frequent Confession and Holy Eucharist. There is no other way to remain in the love of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who will shape and change us to be able to bear fruit that will remain.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Our moms often laid down their life for their children, through sacrifice. Perhaps you have or had a mother like mine – who didn’t retire but kept working to help the family, who spent hardly any money on herself, vacations or entertainment – but spent it on the children – their education and many other things, who kept a meal warm – knowing her son would be home late from school or work, who worried about her children all the time, who passed on the Catholic faith from her parents to her children – through her example of love!
May God bless all mothers living and deceased!
Deacon Mike