This Sixth Sunday of Easter also is Mother’s Day! Today’s Gospel reading from
John recounts Jesus saying:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.” John 15: 9-11
Who we are, what we choose, and how we act toward one another flows from who Jesus is, how Jesus has chosen, and how his actions affect and are reflected in our lives, if we believe. In the First Reading from Acts today, those first called to faith as children of Israel are quite surprised, even shocked that the Holy Spirit might be given also to the Gentiles. Who were they to expect God to be so gracious and generous as to pour out the Spirit upon them?!?
But God did, and God does. Love and faith know no boundaries or limits. Perhaps it is in those very settings or circumstances when it is least expected that love and faith make their greatest mark! Was that not so when Jesus spoke words of mercy for those who led him to and nailed him to the cross even as he hung there, a tragic picture of a broken victim?
Mothers have always come in different shapes and sizes, with different temperaments and world views. Being “mother” or being “child” is seldom if ever a totally smooth run. But every glimmer of the light of love, every hint of a faith that refuses to be limited by what seems to be, can reveal the vast riches of the God whose love is our foundation upon which we stand, our hope toward which we move steadily on.
Happy Easter A Happy Mother’s Day!
Fr. Tom