Scripture:
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
1 John 4:7-10
John 15:9-17
Reflection:
The Sacrificial Love of God is a Mother’s Love
We believe that the love of Jesus embraces everyone and shows God’s divine love for all of us.
When Jesus washes the feet of his Disciples, he is their servant, and he the master, tells them that he is their friend. Jesus does not deem equality with God something to grasp at but rather empties himself becoming the servant. Jesus loves us with a sacrificial love. God describes this love to Moses. “The Lord, the Lord a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and rich in kindness and fidelity’. The New Commandment of Jesus given at the last supper is for us to love in this way.
Who loves with a sacrificial and unselfish love more than a mother? That is what we celebrate today, Mother’s Day.
A story tells that when God created woman from Adam’s side as he slept, God told the woman not to wake Adam. ‘Let him sleep and you and I will take a walk in the garden’. God talks with the woman and fills her with all that will make her different form Adam. She sees her reflection in some water and asks, ‘what is that’? God says, ‘that is only a reflection of you, it will disappear when we move. But, ‘let us wake Adam. Then his love for you will reveal to you who you are; and in your love him, he will come to know who he is’.
Each mother has the privilege of revealing to their child who they are by the love they give. Just as Eve did to Adam, so all the daughters of Eve have the privilege of doing.
Eve isn’t named until God ushers her and Adam out of the garden. Only at the gate does Adam name her Eve. The name that means the mother of all the living.
It is not a woman becoming vice-president, a CEO, or whatever brings fame because of her talents to serve or save or to bring meaning and happiness into the world. What makes all the daughters of Eve unique is the awe filled gift of being a mother.
In our parish church this Lent and for the days of Easter we hung the names of 40 women of the Bible. This was inspired by the church on the shore of Galilee dedicated to the women of Galilee. Around the Baptismal font are 8 pillars, seven have the names of the women of Galilee on inscribed on them, the 8th was left blank. It is for each woman who ministers on behalf of Jesus as did the women of Galilee. They can put their name on that pillar. So there is a blank panel among the names of the Bible women to remind the women who come into our church to put their names there.
We wish a Mother’s Day to all mothers, that is more than happy. May it be profound because of your dignity and privilege, your sacrificial love and the indescribable beauty of your giving birth and revealing the love that makes us in the image of God. See that your name is written in the hand of God, the hand that touches you with special love.
Fr. William Murphy, CP is the pastor of Immaculate Conception parish in Jamaica, New York.