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“You are
already pruned because of the word I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I
remain in you.”
That is what
Jesus said in today’s gospel to his disciples and to all of those who
would wish to be his disciples. Nothing more needs be said because
Jesus has taught everything we need to know. It’s now simply a matter
of remaining rooted in his teaching—“I am the vine, you are the
branches”—so that our lives as disciples will bear very good fruit.
It certainly took
a lot of love—“in deed and in truth,” as St. John wrote in today’s
epistle—for Jesus to fulfill his vocation as the Savior. It meant, in
particular, allowing merciless men to graft his body onto a Cross of
their own making. And, it certainly takes an awful lot of love—again
“in deed and in truth,” as St. John wrote in today’s epistle—for women
today to fulfill their divine vocation to be “Mother” to their children.
It is tough, not
just to muster up the love it will take to be a mother. Being a
mother is especially tough when this divine vocation is maligned and a
mother’s “work” is viewed with disdain. For example, just last
Wednesday evening as I was driving home, I was listening to a radio talk
show. The host was dedicating all of his shows this past week to honor
mothers. A very angry and defiant female called the show, complaining
how “honoring the breeding class” does a disservice to women. Quite
frankly, I never thought of mothers constituting a “breeding class” that
is a disservice to women. I always thought that being a mother was the
highest dignity a woman could achieve in her lifetime. Evidently, there
are people out there who don’t agree with me at all. That makes being a
mother tough. Even tougher yet, I think, would be living in a
hostile culture that would have women feel unfulfilled if their desire
is to be a mother, members of some second-rate breeding class.
More importantly,
it certainly takes an awful lot of love—in deed and in truth—for women
today to fulfill their divine vocation to be “Mother” to their children
because, like Jesus, they must allow themselves to be grafted onto what
I call the “Cross of Motherhood.” Ask any mother and I’m sure she not
only understands exactly what that phrase means but can describe exactly
what it requires of them, as St. John wrote, “in deed and in truth.”
Thinking about
Jesus’ words as they relate to Mother’s Day, it may just as well have
been my mother (or your mother, I presume) speaking those words. “Just
do what I told you to do and don’t give me any guff” is how my mother
would oftentimes tell me to remain rooted in her teaching. Then, there
were her two dicta—survival lessons—to my brother and me: “If you’re
going to kill each other, do it outside” and “If you don’t straighten
up, Mister, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week!” And,
that’s not to overlook, “You just wait until your father gets home from
work.” Generally speaking, there were no if’s, and’s, or but’s about
doing what my mother said. And yet, looking back upon those words that
taught what love demanded in deed and in truth, it wasn’t so much fear
that proved to be the primary motivating factor. No, it was something
else. Namely, the love and respect children naturally have for their
mother. This proved to be the primary motivating factor. Think
about it: What kid would ever want to be disowned by your mother?
Once a woman
embraces motherhood, it is something she will be for all eternity. From
that day forward, she will always be someone’s “Mom.” Fulfilling this
divine vocation, a mother never forgets its effects upon her nor the
“cost” she must pay if she is to cooperate with God not only in giving
birth to but also in raising one of God’s beloved sons or daughters.
Fulfilling this divine vocation also requires humility, precisely
because a mother must place her child’s needs ahead of her own. At the
same time (and sometimes concurrently!), this divine vocation is also
life-enriching, especially as a mother receives the reward of her
child’s love and devotion for the rest of her life. I have been told
many times that being a mother is an incredible experience, one filled
with many joys and many sorrows, all of which are borne with love in a
mother’s heart, as scripture teaches us about the Blessed Mother, Mary.
Today’s reading
from the first letter of John reminds us that love is a verb—an action—not
a feeling. Love is the result of a very careful decision requiring lots
of personal reflection, not the consequence of a rush of hormones. Love
is expressed in concrete behavior and ceases to be love when it is mere
words. As we say of Jesus, “The word is made flesh and dwells among
us,” so too, any talk about love must become evident in deeds and in
truth. As St. John wrote: “Little children, let us love in deed and in
truth and not merely talk about it.” Only action demonstrates true love
because all talk eventually will lose its value because “words are
worthless” absent deeds that demonstrate its truth.
So, that is what
we celebrate on Mother’s Day. How God’s word is made flesh in our lives
and dwells among us through our mothers…not merely their words, but more
substantively, their actions.
We oftentimes
don’t think about this but, in today’s world, there are many “types” of
mothers whose actions demonstrate love in deed and in truth.
There are single
mothers who struggle every day to raise their children. They oftentimes
do so alone and in a culture that doesn’t honor or support single moms.
In fact, our culture tends to ignore the needs of single moms, to
discount their lives, and to believe all of their hard work to be good
mothers is less worthy or noble. Why? Because they aren’t married.
In a culture
which devalues life to the point of encouraging women to kill their
unborn children, these women not only chose life but also did so with
courage, oftentimes against overwhelming circumstances, and willingly
accepting great personal pain. As is quite oftentimes the case, there
weren’t baby showers nor was a beautifully decorated nursery room
awaiting this mother’s arrival home from the hospital with her baby.
Absolutely, there is no comforting hug of a supportive spouse. Perhaps
abused, poor, rejected, or even shamed and shunned by her own family
members for getting pregnant and bringing the baby to term, and despite
the great personal cost, these single mothers didn’t give in to the
rationales our culture provides them as excuses or the demands our
culture makes of them when women reject those rationales. Instead,
single mothers made the right and moral choice to give life to and to
raise their babies.
Suffering the
wounds of abandonment, single mothers deeply love their children, desire
what is best for them, and make countless sacrifices each and every day
for the well-being of their children. Like Jesus, single mothers allow
themselves to be grafted onto the Cross of Abandonment knowing that,
when Jesus comforted his mother, Mary, along the Way of the Cross, Jesus
acknowledged the sacred bond between a mother and her child. It is a
bond that even the power of sin cannot destroy. “I will be with you
until the end of time,” Jesus told his disciples. Perhaps you know a
single mother. Today, wish her a “Happy Mother’s Day” for going against
the tide and making the right and moral decision despite the personal
costs.
There are also
“birth mothers” who decided to give up a child for adoption. Imagine
the selfless love of a birth mother who gives life to her child yet
decides that it is in her child’s best interests to relinquish her baby
to someone else’s love in deed and in truth. Undoubtedly, “birth
mothers” will never forget the experience of having given life to their
children.
More importantly,
however, birth mothers allow themselves to be grafted onto the weighty
Cross of Loss. They lament: I can’t hold my child. I can’t see my
child growing. I miss all of those little yet important events in my
child’s life, his first steps, his first words, and his first scrape.
Birth mothers also allow themselves to be grafted onto the weighty
Cross of Wonderment. As each day passes and they don’t see their child,
birth mothers ask: What does my child look like? Is my child happy?
Yet, as a birth mother suffers on the Cross of Loss and Wonderment, the
tears shed in the carefully guarded silence and secrecy of her heart
reveal a very beautiful prayer, one in which she asks God to bless and
care for the child she has given birth to but known only momentarily.
When Jesus
comforted the women of Jerusalem while plodding along the Way of the
Cross, he said, “Pray not for me but for your children.” Perhaps you
know a birth mother who prays for her child in the silence and secrecy
of her heart. Even though Mother’s Day can expose the loss and
wonderment that burns even today in her heart, wish this birth mother a
“Happy Mother’s Day.” It’s a simple phrase that honors this mother for
her dignity and unselfish love.
Closely related
to a birth mother—not by blood but by love for her child—is another type
of mother, an “adoptive mother.” Not having given birth to her child,
an adoptive mother brings her child to life through her determined,
consistent, and selfless love. Filled with joy as she receives the gift
of her child, an adoptive mother sojourns in a somewhat alien
territory. In her heart, an adoptive mother not only knows that she is
not her child’s birth mother, but she also knows the fear that can
strike into her heart at any moment. What is this fear? That her child
one day will not appreciate and may even reject all of her maternal love
and care, chasing instead after a mythic birth mother who was not
present in deed or in truth as her child met life head-on.
Allowing herself
to be grafted onto the Cross of the Unknown, an adoptive mother actively
resists the temptation to do anything to “win” her child’s love and
devotion. But, as any adoptive mother knows all too well, if she were
to succumb to this temptation, she will “lose” her child’s love and
devotion. So, an adoptive mother confronts this temptation head on and
willingly bears the weight of the Cross of the Unknown in the sure
knowledge that her courage to do what love requires will, in the end,
teach her child about love…in deed and in truth.
As a teenager,
Jesus challenged Mary about why she was so upset with him. Jesus told
his mother “I was doing my Father’s business.” Scripture tells us that
Mary “treasured all of these things in her heart.” Adoptive mothers
treasure many things in their hearts, especially the painful lessons
learned because they love and are devoted to their children in deed and
in truth. Perhaps you know an adoptive mother. Today is the day to
wish her a “Happy Mother’s Day.” This woman’s maternal love is to be
honored because she has given life over many years and through many
experiences—some wonderful to behold and others difficult to bear—to a
birth mother’s infant who is now her child.
We honor these
diverse types of mothers on this Mother’s Day. While the totality of
the experience of motherhood as God has designed it is not that of a
single mother, a birth mother, or an adoptive mother, their selfless
love and devotion for their children in deed and in truth nevertheless
reveals three unique aspects of God’s love and devotion for His sons and
daughters. If these women hadn’t been so selfless by grafting
themselves to the Cross of Motherhood, their children may never have
known God.
Honesty requires
us also to note that these “types” of mothers all fall short of what God
intended for his beloved sons and daughters. While each type reveals
one aspect of maternal love and is to be respected because each also
reveals one aspect of God’s love and devotion for His sons and
daughters, each type of mother is less than what God planned when a
woman cooperated with God in co-creating, bearing, and nurturing human
life in their wombs. Their dignity as mothers is their supreme dignity.
But, due a
variety of life’s circumstances and decisions, no one of these types of
mothers can do what God intended as the “totality” of motherhood. Why?
The best way I think I can express this idea is by stating that God
created motherhood as a “package deal.” Only when motherhood is
experienced as God has designed it can one woman feel life stirring
within her body and give birth to her baby, teach her child about the
kind of life God calls all of his sons and daughters to live, walk
beside her child when confronting life’s joys and challenges, and
experience feelings of joy and humility as her child matures into a
faith-filled adult. Only as God has designed motherhood can one woman
see the face of God in her child at every phase of her child’s life.
Furthermore, only when motherhood is experienced as God has designed it
can one woman graft herself onto the Cross of Motherhood—the Cross of
Abandonment, the Cross of Loss and Wonderment, and the Cross of the
Unknown. This is not only the true ideal of motherhood but its totality
as an expression of love…in deed and in truth.
For those of us
who have been graced to experience motherhood as God has designed it—the
totality of motherhood as our mothers have live out their vocation—today
is the day we honor and celebrate them by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day,
Mom.” These are the women who have birthed us. These are the women who
have nurtured us. And, because of their selfless love, these are the
women who have taught us what Jesus meant when he told his disciples “I
will not leave you orphans.” Their uncompromising courage, their
“straight and stiff” index finger pointed in our faces that threatened
us into learning important moral and spiritual lessons, as well as the
great nobility they demonstrated when we have challenged them, all of
this has served to teach us about the sacred dignity of “motherhood” as
God has designed it. These are the women who have been with their
children and alongside of their children “through it all.”
A mother isn’t a
member of some “breeding class” and her “work” is not important just
because it provides for the physical, emotional, educational, moral, and
spiritual needs of children. No, a mother’s “work” is glorious because
as she allows herself to be grafted onto the Cross of Motherhood, she
sanctifies the lives of her children and helps them to grow in grace and
holiness at each stage of their lives. Children bear good fruit, then,
by allowing allow the word their mothers have made flesh—remember love
is a verb not a feeling—in everything they have done for
their children and to their children by making love
incarnate in the lives of their children. Grafting themselves to
their mothers is how children bear good fruit.
In the second
century, St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote: “We will conserve this life if
we remain united to Christ as if we were grafted on to him; if we follow
the commandments that he gave us faithfully and we try to preserve all
the good things that he has entrusted to us.” Those words speak to us
today because our mothers have grafted themselves to the Cross of Jesus
Christ. For accepting their divine vocation and living it out not only
in word but also in deed and in truth, we wish all mothers—no matter
what “type” they may be—a “Very Happy Mother’s Day.”
A brief
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HOMILY
