May God bless each one of you mothers. Happy mothers day to all of you.

John 15; 9-7. Sixth Sunday in Easter. May 10th, 2015 Mother's Day.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: even as I have loved you..." In today's Gospel, We hear Jesus give this new command to his disciples during the Last Supper. But what does this New Commandment to love one another as I have loved you mean? Obviously, Love was not a new concept to the disciples. They were Jews who were raised on the Law, the Ten Commandments, which already commanded one to Love God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your neighbor as yourself. So, what was different about this new commandment to Love one another?

Let's take a look at the word Love. The word LOVE, in our society today can be a very cheap word. It is used to cover a wide variety of meanings, every thing from erotic love, to the love between a husband and a wife, to the love of a mother for her child. The Greeks had four words for love: Storge, which meant an attractive love. Eros—physical love, which our society as turned into erotic love, that is physically love devoid of any real intimacy at all. Philos, or brotherly love, which meant love for another as a brother. And finally, Agape which was a sacrificial type of love in which one loved the other for the sake of the other and not oneself.

It is this last type of love, AGAPE, that the early Christians borrowed from the Greek in order to try and describe the type of love to which God is calling His followers. This is the type of love in which one lays down one's life for his friend. We are told in the Gospel's, "No greater love is there this, than he who would lay down his life for his friend. Now this laying down of one's life does not merely mean laying down one's life in a physical sense as in death, but it also means laying down one's own interests or desires for the good of one's friend, for his or sake alone and not one’s own.

Today is a perfect day to illustrate the type of love that I am speaking of, because today is Mother's day. A day when we recognize those who have put their interest and desires aside for their children. Mother's are those special people whom I believe have been given to us by God to help us to learn what it means to love. Mother's give totally of themselves for the good of their children. They bear the child for nine months and suffer the pains of childbirth. They stay up at night with an ill child and nourish the child throughout its life. And nobody, but nobody gets in between a mother's love for her child and fails to face the consequences.

In the early part of the last century, the Mother of God appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima Portugual. It was said that the Blessed Mother took the eldest of these children named Lucia to the Highest levels of heaven and then returned her back to earth. Upon her return some bishops and theologians questioned this child about this heavenly experience She was asked by them, "who was up there? "Was it popes, was it bishops, priests, or was it theologians?" Lucia who is now a 90 year old sister who is still living in Spain, look at her questioners with a smile and responded to their question with the answer ...."It was almost entirely mothers."

Mothers are the very heart of the family. It is with their example of their sacrificial love that children learn to follow this New commandment of Jesus. It is our mother’s who really lay down their lives every day. It is the mothers who help nourish not only the physical needs of the child but also the spiritual faith of the Child and the whole family. They teach us most about love. The vocation of a mother is to love.

The Holy Father wrote a beautiful letter on the Dignity and vocation of women. It this letter he said, “the highest vocation is love and it is women who teach us how to love.” He said the dignity of women is measured by the order of love.” And this love is shown to us in the love of a mother for her children, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things… for the sake of her family.

It is in the family nourished especially by the love of their mother, that children are prepared to love as one should as a child of God. And it is this type of love that the world is so desperately searching for, a world where the family is becoming ever weaker and weaker. And it is the family that Pope John Paul II calls the domestic church. And society and the church herself, are only as strong as the family is strong.

The world needs this love, a love that is like a mother's love for her children. A love that will sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of her children. This is at the very nature of what Love is, that is, the very nature of love is sacrifice. One cannot say that they love someone unless they are willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of that person.

But even this is not enough. The early Christians borrowed the word Agape from the Greek but like all words they used to describe the reality of God they imbued it with a higher meaning, supernaturally higher. Jesus' commandment to love one another even as he has loved us, goes even one step further than just laying down one’s life for a friend. He calls us to a love in which we lay down our life even for our enemies. But even beyond that, to love God and one another with a divine love, a supernatural love known as Charity. This is why St. Paul says that if I give my life and do not have love…no!, he doesn’t say love, he says CHARITY.

Charity is the type of love that is impossible for man except that the very Love of Jesus Christ is implanted into our hearts. With God all things are possible. This love is the grace of God implanted into the hearts of those who love him. IN other words, implanted in the hearts of those who love Him to the degree they love Him. We must love God first. In other words we must loving sacrifice ourselves first to God before we can sacrifice ourselves for others so that our sacrifice for others may bear the fruit of bringing souls, bearing souls, saving souls, dare I say, birthing souls for God. According to St. Augustine, we are all called to be mothers in this sense, birthing souls to God through our lives of holiness; that is, through our lives united with God and with our love elevated to the supernatural love of God; this love is known as Charity. (This is also why all women all called to be mothers and can truly be mothers, even if they can not have biological children).

This grace, to love as God as loved us, is given to those who love God by another Mother, which is our Holy Mother Church. She is the Mother who births us at the Sacramental font of baptism, who nourishes us by the sacraments and is there for us during our whole life in good times and in bad. And those who are nourished by the Most Blessed of all Sacraments- the Holy Eucharist, which substantially contains, the very Body and Blood of God’s only Son Jesus Christ who gave up his life in sacrifice for his friends and his enemies, can be elevated by this same Jesus and have their love elevated to the divine level. In the Holy Eucharist Jesus literally offers His own Sacred Heart so we can love God and others which Jesus’ own love, which is Divine love. This is how we receive the power to love with Christ’s own love.

But we can only receive this love, Jesus’ Heart to the extent in which we open our hearts, that is give our hearts completely, fully to Him. To do this we need the help of another mother, Jesus own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the one who can help us offer our hearts totally to Jesus, and to do so with great trust and no fear. She can obtain for us from her Son the grace to cut the strings which hold us from giving out hearts totally to God, and to obtain for us the grace to live this self offering in all areas of our lives. Our lives then become Jesus’ life, we begin to live for Him and Him alone, and He begins to live in us, love in us and heal and save others in us, through us and with us.

Today let us all thank our mothers for their love for us. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the model of all mothers; it is she who mothers, with the help of the grace of prayer and the sacraments, must try to imitate. A mother can do no better thing for her children than to have a strong devotion herself to the mother of God, and to cultivate this devotion in her children. Of course, the best way is for mothers to pray the rosary daily for her children and especially with her children, teaching her children, through the prays of the rosary, to meditate on the life of Christ. She truly is the heavenly mother of us all. It is she who tells us to do what ever her Son Jesus tells us to do. And that is to love one another even as I have loved you. May God bless each one of you mothers. Happy mothers day to all of you.