6th Sunday of Easter 2023 - Selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional love (Mother's Day)

 

Throughout the Easter season, we read each sunday from the Gospel of John. Six weeks into Easter now,  we’ve read St. John’s account of the Risen Lord appearing in the locked room, and showing the signs of his crucifixion—signs of his love—to the apostles. We then read the risen Lord’s appearance to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, setting their hearts on fire with love as he explained the scriptures and broke the bread. We then read St. John’s account of the Lord’s teaching that he is the good shepherd who lovingly lays down his life for his sheep. Do you see a theme emerging? Love overflows throughout the easter season.

Today’s Gospel was another beautiful message from St. John’s gospel about Love. At the Last Supper, St. John reports over and over the Lord Jesus teaching his disciples that their lives must be characterized by love, we must practice love. Love of God. Love of Neighbor. Love for your fellow Christian. Love for your enemies.  

The Gospel of John is referred to sometimes as the Gospel of Love, for John’s Gospel finds Jesus teaching about love, speaking about love, commanding his disciples to love.  He shows us signs of love, he sets hearts on fire with love, he lays down his life in love. This is how they will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another. 

St. John stresses throughout his Gospel that Jesus’ actions are manifestations of God’s love for us. Jesus makes known the love of God. Jesus himself tells us that he loves us. “I love you” are on the very lips of Jesus himself: “as the Father loves me, so I love you.” 

Augustine said, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.” God’s love is made known by the hands of Jesus, the feet of Jesus, the eyes of Jesus, the ears of Jesus. And our hands, and feet, and eyes, and ears are to become instruments of God’s love as well, as we hand our lives more and more over to the call to “love one another”. 

In St. John’s original Greek version of today’s Gospel, the word translated as “love” is the word agape, which you’ve likely heard is one of a number of words the Greek’s used for love. Agape is not simply brotherly affection, or even the love between really good friends. It is more than the loving loyalty the patriot has toward his country or native land, nor is it the romantic, emotion-driven passion of lovers that ebbs and flows depending on mood. Rather, agape is the highest form of love: selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. 

And the Lord says, that’s the type of love we are to cultivate toward God and toward our fellow man and Christians. Selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. For this is the love that God has toward us. God is love, St. John tells us.

Today, we celebrate Mother’s Day, the beautiful loving souls of our mothers. And for many of us, our mothers are our first real encounter with love, our frame of reference for love that is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. Our mothers loved us in the womb; they loved us as we cried to be fed and changed as infants. They lovingly tucked us in and sang us lullabies and calmed our fears when nightmares disturbed our sleep. They showed us that love is patient and love is kind, when as children we surely pushed the limits of patience and kindness. Our mothers lovingly corrected us when were selfish and misbehaved and required motherly discipline. 

Our mothers showed us that love comes in many forms: love comforts, it feeds, it corrects, it weeps with those who weep, it nurtures, it teaches, it embraces hard days and sleepless nights.

If human love is always a reflection of God’s love, then our mother’s love is one of the most clearest and brightest reflections. One might say that God’s love for us and a mother’s love for her children are intricately woven. Mothers show us what love looks like. 

God gave us mothers to love us, so that we might be able to grasp his infinite love for us, and how we are to love Him and love one another. Our mothers are our first teachers that life is better when we practice love. 

Love of God is the key to following all of the commandments. The Lord says in the Gospel today: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them, is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him." Why should we follow the commandments and spend ourselves in service and seek to forgive and give to the poor? Because we love God and want to please God.  God is supremely loveable and therefore His commandments supremely right and just.

The love of God transforms us from the inside out. Love of God enables us to suffer wrongdoing patiently, to be kind to those who slander or mock us. Love enables us to overcome jealousy, pride, rudeness, and every earthly attachment. It enables us to bear all things,  believe all that the Church teaches, hope in the promises of Christ, and endure every trial. Love never fails.

The saints show us what agape-love is capable of doing. Agape turns selfish troubadours like St. Francis into great champions of love. It makes simple peasants into doctors of the Church who counsel kings. It enables us to be delivered from resentments and hurts from the past. It turns fishermen into globe-traversing preacher-martyrs.

It makes ordinary people like us into extraordinary instruments of grace for the kingdom. It makes us not just hearers of the word, but doers of the word.

Pope Benedict, in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, writes: “Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practice it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world.

Our world is in desperate need of Christians bringing the light of God into the dark corners of society. Just this morning, I saw an alert, that there were three homicides in Cleveland in the last twelve hours. We can be certain, that the perpetrators of these crimes have allowed loveless darkness to fill their lives. This city is in desperate need of Christians bearing the light of the love of God. No one else will do it. No one else has been tasked to do it, but us.

4th Sunday of Easter 2022 - Holy Mother Church

 Last week after the 11am Mass, we celebrated our annual May Crowning. The statue of Our Lady, here on the side of the sanctuary, was crowned with flowers, to commemorate Blessed Mary as our Queen. She is the queen of the Church, she is the queen of heaven, she is queen of angels.  She is our spiritual queen and she is our spiritual mother. For Our Blessed Lord, at the crucifixion turned to his disciple and said, “behold your mother”. All Christians have Mary as our Spiritual Mother.

And on this Mother’s Day weekend, it is good for us to renew our love for both our biological mothers, the women who reared us and raised us, and also our spiritual mother given to us by Christ the Lord. Today is a perfect day for praying the rosary—offering the roses of our prayers to heaven for our mothers, in honor of our mothers, out of love and gratitude for our mothers.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have also referred to the Church as our Mother. Holy Mother Church. A few years ago, Pope Francis reflected on what that means. And I’m going to quote extensively from the Holy Father here, because his reflections are wonderful. He said, “Among the images that the Second Vatican Council chose to help us understand the nature of the Church better, is that of “mother”: the Church is our mother in faith, in supernatural life. It is one of the images most used by the Fathers of the Church in the first centuries…For me,” the Pope says, “it is one of the most beautiful images of the Church: Mother Church! In what sense and in what way is the Church mother? We start with the human reality of motherhood: what makes a mother?

“First of all,” the Pope says, “a mother generates life, she carries her child in her womb for 9 months and then delivers him to life, giving birth to him. The Church is like this: she bears us in the faith, through the work of the Holy Spirit who makes her fertile, like the Virgin Mary. The Church and the Virgin Mary are mothers, both of them; what is said of the Church can be said also of Our Lady and what is said of Our Lady can also be said of the Church! Certainly faith is a personal act: “I believe”, I personally respond to God who makes himself known and wants to enter into friendship with me . But the faith I receive from others, within a family, within a community that teaches me to say “I believe”, “we believe”. A Christian is not an island! We do not become Christians in a laboratory, we do not become Christians alone and by our own effort, since the faith is a gift, it is a gift from God given to us in the Church and through the Church. 

And the Church gives us the life of faith in Baptism: that is the moment in which she gives birth to us as children of God, the moment she gives us the life of God, she engenders us as a mother would. 

If you go to the Baptistery of St John Lateran, beside the Pope's Cathedral, inside it there is an inscription in Latin which reads more or less: “Here is born a people of divine lineage, generated by the Holy Spirit who makes these waters life-giving; Mother Church gives birth to her children within these waves”. This makes us understand something important: our taking part in the Church is not an exterior or formal fact, it is not filling out a form they give us; it is an interior and vital act; one does not belong to the Church as one belongs to a society, to a party or to any other organization. The bond is vital, like the bond you have with your mother, because, as St Augustine says, “The Church is truly the mother of Christians” Let us ask ourselves: how do I see the Church? As I am grateful to my parents for giving me life, am I grateful to the Church for generating me in the faith through Baptism? 

Do we love the Church as we love our mothers, also taking into account her defects? All mothers have defects, we all have defects, but when we speak of our mother's defects we gloss over them, we love her as she is. And the Church also has her defects: but we love her just as a mother. Do we help her to be more beautiful, more authentic, more in harmony with the Lord?” 

Then the Holy Father goes on to describe the second way the Church is mother. He says, “A mother does not stop at just giving life; with great care she helps her children grow, gives them milk, feeds them, teaches them the way of life, accompanies them always with her care, with her affection, with her love, even when they are grown up. And in this she also knows to correct them, to forgive them and understand them. She knows how to be close to them in sickness and in suffering. In a word, a good mother helps her children to come of themselves, and not to remain comfortably under her motherly wings, like a brood of chicks under the wings of the broody hen. The Church like a good mother does the same thing: she accompanies our development by transmitting to us the Word of God, which is a light that directs the path of Christian life; she administers the Sacraments. She nourishes us with the Eucharist, she brings us the forgiveness of God through the Sacrament of Penance, she helps us in moments of sickness with the Anointing of the sick. The Church accompanies us throughout our entire life of faith, throughout the whole of our Christian life. We can then ask ourselves other questions: what is my relationship with the Church? Do I feel like she is my mother who helps me grow as a Christian? Do I participate in the life of the Church, do I feel part of it? Is my relationship a formal or a vital relationship?”

So Mother Church, gives us spiritual birth, and she rears us, that we may become the people God made us to be. But for what? Well, our second reading this weekend from the book of Revelation answers that question. Why?

We heard in John’s vision, this weekend, Mother Church’s children having reached their eternal destination. The “great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue” stand before the throne of God. These are the souls who have been born by mother Church, who have been nurtured by mother Church, who have walked as faithful sons and daughters of Mother Church, and who now have reached the maturity, the end, for which they were created, reconciliation with God in eternity. As the Early Church Fathers would say, we cannot have God as Father without the Church as our mother.

May we love our Mother the Church, allow ourselves to be nurtured and taught by her always, for she is Mater et Magistra--Mother and Teacher. May we be the best of children of Our Holy Mother the Church, that we may receive the eternal life the Lord suffered and died to obtain for us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

6th Sunday of Easter 2019 - Anxiety and the Gift of Peace

Scripture speaks often of God’s desire to give his people “peace”. Psalm 85 says that God promises peace to his people. Psalm 29 says, “The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.” Paul tells the Galatians that the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, goodness, faithfulness, and peace” Isaiah prophecies that the Messiah will be called “Wonder-Counselor and Prince of Peace”

The Peace which the Lord exhibited in his earthly ministry must have been profoundly attractive to his people. You can tell when people are filled with the peace of God. The holiest people I’ve met have been the most peaceful—peace surrounds them like cloak. I think the opposite is also true; most of us have met people that seem surrounded by a cloud of distress, bitterness, unhappiness; drama and chaos and division follow them everywhere. Perhaps, you’ve met someone who has allowed grief to turn into anger at the world or anger at God and that anger just exudes from them. Christians, rather, should be known by their peace. We are called to be peacebearers and peacemakers.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” What powerful words, especially when we know, all too well, how anxiety, fear, anger, worry can have such a negative effect upon our lives.

We worry or are angry about the economy, about our jobs, our families, our kids and spouses, our Church and our parish, our government, our country, the environment. Anxities and resentments can have serious repercussions on our physical and mental health, resulting in headaches, irritability, muscular aches and pains, gastrointestinal issues, depression, difficulty in concentrating, both extreme fatigue and sleeplessness, just to name a few symptoms.

And many people turn to compulsive behaviors to cope with their anxiety: overindulgence in alcohol, drugs, promiscuity or pornography, excessive eating and shopping. Anything to give some semblance of control.

Anxiety and restlessness can be a sign that things are out of balance. God designed the human person in such a way that we experience anxiety, some restlessness, when our lives are out of balance. Anxiety can be a sign that we need to make some changes to our Diet, exercise, and sleep schedule, that we need to spending more quality time with family and friends. Serious compulsions and serious anxiety is likely a sign that we need to speak with a counselor.

Yes, anxiety and restlessness can be signs that something is out of balance and needs to be changed about our physical and mental habits. They can also be a sign that something needs to be changed or improved about our spiritual habits. As St. Augustine said so rightly, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” If we aren’t experiencing the peace we think we should, in our spiritual life, we do well to examine what might need to change.

The peace that God wants for us might come from personal changes, it will likely come through other people, working on relationships, and peace will certainly through prayer and the sacraments. One well-known Catholic psychologist said that 5 minutes in the confessional is worth a month of therapy. The honesty of admitting one’s failures in the confessional and acknowledging that God is the source of peace and strength for the future, has a powerful therapeutic effect, not to mention the spiritual cleansing we receive through sacramental absolution.

Boredom, too, is likely a sign that spiritual changes need to be made. I often tell the kids over in the school that boredom is either a sign that they need to get up and do something physical, or it’s a sign that they need to spend more time in prayer. Likely, it’s a sign of both.

Boredom, anxiety, anger, fear, worry, these are signs that we need to go to a quiet place and open ourselves to the gift of peace that Jesus promises in our gospel today. Now some people confuse prayer and worry. Prayer is not simply over-ideating on your problems. Going over and over your worries in your head is not prayer. Rather, prayer requires entrusting our worries to God, asking God to help us identify what we can do about them, and letting him take care of the rest. As they say in AA, let go and let God. Peace comes through faith: yes, it comes from doing what we can, praying hard, working hard, but finally, we need to entrust our needs to God.

St. Padre Pio, the great Italian stigmatist from the last century, is said to have received many letters from around the world. Thousands of letters every day. And these letters, as you guessed it, were filled with people’s problems, needs, and worries. And, it’s said that he would often write back the same thing in every response. He’d write, “work hard, do your best, pray hard, and don’t worry.” Work hard, do your best, pray hard, and don’t worry.

In thinking about worry and anxiety, I can’t help but think, as well, of our mothers who we celebrated two weeks ago on Mother’s day. Not as the cause of our anxieties…mostly…but as the remedy. Who here hasn’t brought a worry or anxiety to your mother? Mothers sort of absorb the worries and anxieties of her children. We no doubt have many mothers here who have taken their own children’s worries and anxieties and needs upon themselves, who have brought their children’s anxieties, in their hearts, to the altar today. And something happens in the mother’s heart, doesn’t it, problems are transformed, sometimes wisdom is discovered, peace is given.

On this final Sunday of the Month of May, I invite all of you to deepen and strengthen your relationship to our Mother in Heaven, Our Lady. She is called Our Lady of Sorrows, because she takes our sorrows and the sorrows of the world to God for us. She is Our Lady Perpetual Help because she is always there, always concerned for each one of us. She is Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, because we can always find peace and protection in her care. As Mediatrix of Grace she is the channel through which God’s peace is offered to us.

So, bring your needs, your worries and woes, your stresses to Mother Mary every day. In the moment of fear, in the moment of anger, in the moment of temptation, call upon Mother Mary. She will always help us find and know the gift of peace, given to us by Her Son, Our Lord. No Doubt, Mary’s presence brought peace to Jesus Himself throughout his own sufferings. We know Mary comforted Jesus on the way of the cross, we know she stood by him as he suffered crucifixion and died. Jesus gave Mary to us as our own Mother, and we do well, to allow her to do a mother’s job in our own life, to be that powerful source of peace in our needs and troubles.

Please know that as I embark on pilgrimage this week, I bring all of your needs, worries, anxieties, and petitions with me, and pray that the Lord may continue to bless us with his gift of peace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

5th Sunday of Easter 2017 - Mother's Day and Fatima 100th Anniversary

Happy Mother’s Day.

We celebrate a very special Mother’s Day this weekend. 100 years ago, on May 13, 1917, Our Blessed Mother began appearing to 3 little shepherd children near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of Lisbon, Portugal. In honor of the centennial anniversary this weekend, Pope Francis has traveled to Fatima to celebrate the canonization of two of those children, Francisco and Jacinta, who after their encounter with the Blessed Mother lived lives of great sanctity. An encounter with the Blessed Mother always changes you, and when you entrust yourself to her, she will help you to be as holy as God made you to be.

At Fatima, Mary tasked the children and all of us to pray the rosary for world peace, for the end of World War I, for the conversion of Russia, and to pray especially for sinners in danger of hell. She urged the children also to offer their lives in reparation for the sins and to make mortifications throughout the day for the conversion sinners.

You may have also heard of the three secrets of Fatima; the Blessed Mother delivered three secret messages to the children, two of which they were allowed to reveal soon after the apparitions.  The first secret was actually a terrifying vision: Mary showed the children a vision of a multitude of souls languishing in hell. They saw blackened souls, surrounded by torturing demons, lakes of fire with souls screaming in torment.

Mothers seek to protect their children from harm. And Our Blessed Mother is concerned not only with the well-being of our bodies, but our souls. And this first vision is a warning, of what happens when souls separate themselves from God through serious sin, when they live godless lives, and persevere in error.

The second secret was a prophecy.  The Blessed Mother told the children that World War One was about to end, but unless Russia converted to Catholicism and was consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, the godless errors of atheistic communism would spread throughout the world and another great war would follow the first; great destruction would be wrought upon earth the human evil and the Church would be persecuted.  But in the end, her immaculate heart would triumph.

The first war did end, shortly after the apparition. And though Russia was consecrated to the Immaculate Heart by Pius XII, Russia did not embrace the Faith and a second war did follow, World War II. Atheism and communism have spread. The 20th century contained more death, destruction, and martyrdom than all of the previous centuries combined.  The Church suffered terribly in the 20th century: 8000 priests in Spain alone were killed in the 1930s; 3000 priests in Mexico, 6000 priests were sent to the concentration camps of the Nazis. Countless souls turned away from the saving faith in the 20th century to the errors of atheism and the grave sins of the sexual revolution.

Our Mother’s promise will come to fulfillment at the end of time: her Immaculate Heart will triumph, when the love of God brings about the ultimate end of evil.

The third secret was made known to the world during the reign of Pope St. John Paul II. The children were shown a a vision of an angel with a flaming sword, who cried out “Penance, Penance, Penance” Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious climbed up a steep mountain and at the top of the mountain, an immense Cross. There they beheld a Bishop, dressed in white, shot by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him. Two angels then gathered the blood of the martyrs in holy water buckets and sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God. A very strange vision.
Pope Benedict believed this vision of the Bishop dressed in white to refer to the Popes of the 20th century collectively, who shared in the suffering of the Church, and how the Church is strengthened by their Holy Witness. The Popes of the 20th Century were very holy men compared to some of the Popes of centuries past.

Pius X, John XXIII, John Paul II have been canonized. Paul VI has been beatified, and Pius XII is on his way to canonization. These holy men gave incredible witness and clarity of teaching, during one of the bloodiest and secular ages the Church has faced. And although the 21st century has seen the incredible leadership of Pope Benedict, who in my opinion is a living saint, and Pope Francis who has so impressively called us to embody the mercy of God, the errors of the 20th century continue to lead souls away from God and put them in danger of hell.

Yet, Our Lady promised, in the end, “Her Immaculate Heart would triumph.” Pope Benedict interpreted these words as well. He said, “The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word.”

Mother’s day! How can we honor our mother’s this day? We honor our mother’s with cards and candy and flowers, taking them to their favorite places, or perhaps visiting the grave of the mother’s who have died. But I think the greatest honor we can show our mothers is by becoming the people God made us to be, people of faith and love, the people our mothers hoped we would be. That goes for our earthly mothers and also our Blessed Mother.

We show great honor to our Mother by taking up the rosary as she taught us, by turning to her example of love, and emulating the resounding Yes she made to God. Take seriously your Mother’s wishes, that her children pray the rosary, do penance for sinners, seek the purification of our own hearts from all resistance to God. Allow her immaculate heart to triumph over the evils that still linger in our world and hearts.

Make your mother smile today. Your earthly mother and the Blessed Mother. And may each of us entrust our fates, our souls to mother Mary, that we, with her “may further more effectively each day the reign of Christ” in the world and in our hearts, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.