A Homily for Mother's Day on Mary our Mother, May 8, 2022.
First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to the ladies in our congregation, and thank you for saying yes to life. Thank you for being witnesses to life. There is a spiritual link between each of you and the Blessed Mother, between your maternity and hers, and so how fitting it is that we crown her image in our church today.
Our Catholic Faith has always honored the Motherhood of Mary as something precious that allowed her to know and love Jesus more than anyone else. Jesus and Mary shared a deep interpersonal bond from the first-time she held that precious Infant in her arms at Bethlehem to the last time that she held Him, bloody and lifeless, on Mount Calvary. And death has not broken that bond because, as Easter shows and promises us, death is not an end to our lives but simply a change in their expression and mode of existence.
We love and honor her because Jesus loved her and honored her. Following the example of the Lord, who entrusted himself to Mary in his dependent humanity, we ask her to mother us and teach us to walk in the ways of God.
Mary’s yes to motherhood made it possible for Christ to redeem us from the inside out, by becoming one of us, healing our wounded humanity by his divinity. Without Mary’s free and generous consent, this God-becoming-man event could not have happened. Without Mary’s motherhood, we would not be redeemed because it was her yes that opened the pathway to earth for the Savior of Mankind. The plain and simple fact is that without Mary’s motherhood, we would not be Christians, the adopted sons and daughters of God.
Even though Mary’s Son was like no other, this did not spare her from the struggles and sufferings of motherhood that many of you know so well. These began for her in the days of her pregnancy when she had to face the judgmental stares of her neighbors. And it continued after the Lord’s birth when the Holy Family had to escape into Egypt to save the Holy Infant’s life. And what mother couldn’t agonize with Mary over the mysterious disappearance of her Son for three very long days?
Finally, imagine how difficult it must have been for Mary when the time came for her only Child to leave home and begin his mission. Joseph had already died and so surely Jesus was the center of her home, the bright spot of her day. And yet, having the desire that all mothers have for their children to do what they were meant to do with their lives, Mary doesn’t stand in his way, she lets go of him because that’s what a mother’s love does.
I am sure that Mary also felt that his love and presence was not something to be kept to all to herself, to be hoarded for herself. She wanted everyone to know and experience the great love, the tender mercy and the gentle compassion of her Son. And Mary wants each one of us to know and experience these things as well. She makes this possible for us through her mission as the Blessed Mother of Christians. Just as she taught and formed Jesus in his humanity, so she offers to teach and form us in our Christianity. By her motherly prayers for us, she will guide us to the people we need to meet, the things we need to learn and the ways we need to change in order to live as true disciples of her Son.
However, just as Jesus does not force anyone to accept him as their Lord and Savior, so he does not force anyone to accept Mary as their spiritual mother. This is another one of God's free gifts. All we have to do to unwrap it and use it is to ask her, invite her, to be a mother in our lives, and then open ourselves up to her material direction and influence. The prayers which we address to her, the hymns that we sing in her honor, and the crown we place upon her head will only be truly meaningful if they represent this kind of love and this kind of praise for her that Jesus wants us to have residing within our hearts.
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