And what son or daughter who truly loves their mother, would not be willing to be faithful to her, and protect and defend their mother,

Our readings today speak to us of God’s greatest commandment, the commandment to love. To love not as the world understands it, but to love as God understands it. In other words, our readings speak to us the fullness of love.

In order to truly love we are called to:
Listen to God by listening to His Holy Word which comes to us unadulterated through the teachings of His Catholic Church. In light of this Word of God, we are called to show our love for God by conforming our lives more and more to this truth, which is His truth, He who is Truth Itself. And, finally, in imitation of Christ, who is the Word of God, Truth Incarnated, we are called to care for the needs of others, their material needs, but most of all their spiritual needs, caring for them even to the point of laying down our lives for their good, for the eternal life of another whether he be friend or foe.

All of this is, in a unique way, the very vocation of motherhood: Listening, conforming her life to another, and
Caring for the needs of others even to the point of Laying down her life for another.

A mother’s love is first seen even before a woman becomes a mother. A husband and wife’s mutual desire to with the help of God, cooperate with God, procreate with God and so conceive a child, who is a new unique, individual, unrepeatable person, distinct from both the Father and the Mother even before the child is born. This openness to God as shown in their openness to life, in itself demonstrates their fatherly and motherly love. And their love for one another expressed in mutually gift of self to each other, extends to the child they lovingly desire to not only conceive but to rear and so lead to the Father’s love.

Not much is stronger than a mother’s love for her child.
 Our mothers, together with our fathers, are the ones who first teach us about love and how to respond to those in need. But mothers in particular are an example of someone who really lives for the sake of another, her child. She does this most especially by her solicitousness for not only the child’s physical life, but most importantly by her consuming occupation for his or her spiritual and eternal life.

The Church, in many ways, is also a true mother to us.
 She too is most concerned for Her children, for their material needs but must importantly for their spiritual needs. And so she teaches us, with the very words of her Divine Savior, how to truly love and so how to respond to another in authentic sacrificial love. From her we are taught to hear the word of God, and receive fully and authentically His teachings and commands in order to guide our steps in the truth and freedom of the children of God. And from her we receive the grace of the sacraments, grace without which we can never reach the level of love to which we are called and destined in order to be one with God, and others in a communion of love.

Today, in a special way, let us be grateful for our mothers, by birth or adoption, who nurtured us and supported us through life, but who most especially nurtured us by leading us to the bosom of our truest mother on earth, the Holy Catholic Church. Let us be thankful for all of those holy women in our life who while not our mother, nonetheless helped to spiritually birth us by their holiness of life and by their example of selfless love for others.

Let us especially be thankful for our Catholic Church who truly takes on the maternal role of guiding us through life. She is our Holy Mother, Who feeds and sustains, nurtures and teaches, and Who protects and defends her maternal offspring, all of those who are born in the womb of baptism and live their lives in faithfulness to Her and through Her in faithfulness to Christ.


Today, sadly there are government efforts to limit the Church’s capacity to be mother to all. Some, even some misguided members of the Church want us to stay out of society and not engage the culture. Some feel our teachings should be kept within the walls of the church. Some tell us that we have no right to hire or help others outside our faith unless we are willing to compromise our beliefs and teachings.

No matter what policy makers or government officials may try to enforce, the Church can never compromise in Her Divine missions to:
Listen to and proclaim the full teachings of Christ; and so, care for all those in need, most especially by giving them the truth they need to reach their eternal salvation. She can never compromise in Her Divine mission Defend those and the life of those who are the most defenseless, especially woman and children, born or unborn, rich or poor, sick or healthy, clean or unclean. And finally, no matter what policy makers or government officials may try to enforce, the Church and her members can never compromise in their mission to lay down their life for others, so that they may not only live, but have life and have to the full.

And what son or daughter who truly loves their mother, would not be willing to be faithful to her, and protect and defend their mother, even to the point of laying down their lives for her who in so many ways laid down her life for them…If this be the case for love of earthly mothers, how much more should it be the case for our true Mother on earth, the Church, we her sons and daughters who have been fed by her bosoms with the milk of her grace which flows to us in and through the sacraments of the Church, especially that greatest of all Sacraments the Holy Eucharist, in which our Holy Mother Church gives us the very flesh and blood of the Risen Christ for our food, gives us the true body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ the only Son of the Eternal Father.

How ungrateful, unfaithful sons and daughters we would be not to defend her when She is so ferociously attack, as She is being in our day; how villainess are those sons and daughters of Hers, who either participate outright in those attacks or sit idly by as She is trampled through the muck and mud of public opinion, exposed to the vileness of the media, the hatred of the pagans and the wickedness of those who claim to be her children but who have not only turn their backs on her but even attack her from with in.

As we honor our dear mothers, living or deceased let us today also honor our Holy Mother Church. As we commit to loving our birth mothers more, let us commit to loving more the Mother who has birth us into sharing the Divine Life of God Himself, and who desires to lead us into the fullness of this Divine Life when our pilgrimage here on earth is done. Let us commit with the strength and love which comes only from adoring Jesus in the Holy Eucharist to even lay down our life for Her sake and the sake of all souls for whose eternal lives She is ever solicitous.

And let us today thank and honor in a special way, that perfect image of Our Holy Mother Church, the Blessed Mother, who, by her powerful intercessions protects both the Church and all her children who call out to her in their great need. She is our heavenly Mother; let us recommend our earthly mothers to Her care, as well as all women born or unborn. Amen.