May 11th, 2025: Fourth Easter Sunday Homily

My Sheep Hear My Voice – Mother’s Day

Today is a day of celebration! It is the day known to the Church as Good Shepherd Sunday. And, we have a new shepherd: Pope Leo XVI: successor to Francis in the chair of Peter. A great gift to our Church and definitely something to celebrate! This weekend/today is also Mother’s Day!

The other thing we come here to celebrate today is the Eucharist: Jesus’ death on the cross for our salvation. It was the greatest gift anyone has ever given, and he gave it to the world. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”

There was another gift that Jesus gave us from the cross. After he had been crucified, still hanging on the cross in agony, and just before he gave up his life, he said “Behold, your mother”.  He made it overtly at the time to “the disciple he loved”: John, because he was the only Apostle standing there. But who are the disciples he loves? You and to me. He said to us: “Behold, your mother”. He gave us the gift of his mother!

Mary was given the title “Theotokos”, in Greek it means “God-Bearer”. When she said “yes”, she gave up everything she had planned for her life, in order to carry, to bear, the savior of the world in her womb, so that God’s only begotten son, born of a virgin in the city of David, would be our salvation. Mary gave up everything in order to allow that to happen in her. That is unconditional trust. That is unconditional love!

A mother is one who gives unconditional love, one who gives birth to…or…raises a child – you don’t have to give birth to be a mother. A mother provides care, support, and nurturing. A mother gives unconditional love.

Tomorrow/Today is the day we celebrate mothers, mostly…

I say mostly because life happens, and Mother’s Day does not feel like a celebration to everyone. Some find today very painful.

For example: Some people have lost their mom’s and are feeling the weight of that loss today. I lost my mom this past June.

This day can also be painful for those whose mothers were not nurturing. Those whose mothers were wounded or damaged in their lives, and as a result did not provide unconditional love, but quite the opposite. Sometimes what those mothers provided was neglect or abuse, leaving deep wounds that we are left to deal with for the rest of our lives.  

There are also women who want desperately to be mothers, but either cannot get pregnant, or in some tragedy have lost a child, after conception in the womb or after that child was born.

Some mothers had babies but loved them enough to give them up for adoption, because while it was the most difficult decision they have ever made, it was the best decision for their baby.

So, Mother’s Day is not necessarily a celebration for everyone.

But here is the good news! You know, the word Gospel literally means “good news”. Do you think Jesus gave us his mother because he knew that life would happen? Do you think he gave us his mother because he knew the wounds and the tragedies we would suffer? Do you think he knew that women would suffer these wounds in ways that no man can understand? Or that maybe some of us would need his mother to provide this unconditional love because she would be the only mother who would provide it to some of us in this life?

Do you think the Savior of the world knew his sheep, knows his sheep: the disciples that he loves? And he knew from the cross, as he does today, that we would need this good news: “Behold, your mother.”

Now, even Pope Leo XVI, in his opening speech on Thursday used these words, and I am paraphrasing here: “Peace be with you. This is the peace of the risen Christ. It comes from God. God, who loves all of us, without any limits or conditions.” Well, coming from the successor to Peter, that sounds an awful lot like that unconditional love we were just talking about.  

We heard Jesus’ words today: “No one can take them out of my hand.” Only we can refuse Jesus’ love. A love he offered freely from the cross. And he gave us his mother, in his agony on the cross, to help us.

Jesus gives us that unconditional love, from the cross. He will forgive us for anything, if we just ask. And in the middle of that act: from the cross, he said “Behold, your mother”.

Today we hear the good news from the good shepherd: that unconditional love, if we just ask. “I know them, and no one can take them out of my hand. We also hear the good news: “Behold, your mother.”