Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Mothers' Day: May 10, 2009

Given by the Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire at Central Catholic High School .

Our spring weather this year is quite gentle, in the eighties. We certainly could have used more rain, but nevertheless, the grass and hills are green; the trees are producing fruit and vegetables are being harvested. The agriculture and weather in the Valley reflects the image given us by Jesus in John’s Gospel of the vine and the branches. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower….you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.” God loves to see the growth of goodness in our lives and an abundant harvest of good works.

The first Letter of John to a Christian community puts it this way: “…We have confidence in God…we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them.”

For us to grow and become who we are called to be and to love God and one another not just in word but in deed and in truth, we must remain as branches on the vine: Jesus living within us and we living in Him through the Church. God is glorified when we live fruitful lives of faith and remain in union with Christ as his disciples.

Just as God loves to see us grow in goodness and in fruitfulness of good works, so on this Mothers’ Day, I believe we can draw an analogy of a mother’s love who wants to see her children grow in goodness and produce the harvest of a good life. A mother comes to know her child in the experience of growth: from a fertilized egg, to a developing child in the protection of the womb , through birth into the world, from an infant, to a child, to an adolescent, to a young adult, to an responsible adult in the wider human family. As God the vine grower nurtures the branch on the vine and prunes the branch by His word of love, so a mother nurtures her child and disciplines the child with the word of love. The good mother wants to remain close to her child but understands that nurturing respects freedom and gives growth to the acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s life. Much in the same vein, St. Paul wrote to the Romans that when we live we are responsible to the Lord and when we die, we die as his servants. Needless to say it is not easy when the child leaves home to undertake one’s own life. Joy is usually mixed with an element of sadness.

Today we honor our mothers so we do not say much about fathers, even though much must be said. While indeed there are heroic single mothers and widows with children, there is always an incompleteness without the complementarity of a father.

The way of God is the way of nurturing and growth. The way of a mother is the same. That is what it means for her to be godlike. Fully human with all the imperfections we all have, but nevertheless godlike. To God we give the glory. To our mothers we give honor today.

Last Update May 11, 2009