As I think back on the many things my mom would say to me growing up, there was certainly a pattern. Phrases like: “it will be ok”, “I’m right here with you” “I love you”, and “keep practicing, it will get easier” were very comforting when I was scared, hurt, or frustrated. I also heard things like: “go to your room until you’re ready to behave”, or “tell your sister you are sorry for hurting her feelings”, and “we’ll see if you still feel that way when your father gets home”. These words were challenging and although I didn’t like them at the time, they usually ended up making me a better person in the long run. These words of comfort and challenge, have been a part of our lives growing up. Perhaps we still hear some of them even as adults! Behind these phrases was a love that can only spring from a mother’s heart. Behind these words was a hope for our future, a determination that we become someone good and happy and successful. On this day our world acknowledges and thanks moms for the countless sacrifices and acts of love that they show us day in and day out. And all of us in this church should take a moment, if we haven’t already, to thank God for the gift of our mom, who loved us incredibly and who sacrificed so much of her herself to help us become who we are today. For some of you, your mom is no longer here with you. Please take some time today and every day to pray for her soul, that she enjoy the rewards of heaven and the peace and fulfillment that only God can give her.
Now I do not want to preach only about Mother’s day, but I think the primary roles of comforting and challenging that our moms practice in raising us is an important dynamic to consider. Why does a mother comfort her child? Of course she does so because she loves her little one. She wants to take away pain, eliminate any fear and assure the child that everything will be ok. A good mother comforts naturally, it doesn’t have to be taught or rehearsed. It radiates from the limitless love she has for her child and it springs from her desire to share everything with her little one.
The same can be said for why our moms challenge us as we move through the stages of life. Certainly, it would have been easier for them to leave us to our own devices rather than chase us around and ask us to clean our rooms, put away the laundry and take out the trash. Surely, they did not look forward to checking our homework, forcing us to apologize when we had done wrong and hurt someone nor did they derive pleasure from sending us to our rooms or taking away various privileges. A loving mother challenges her children because she knows it will help them to grow and practice virtues. It is a selfless form of love that looks beyond what the child thinks is best in all its immaturity and short-sightedness. A mother’s challenge is for the child’s own good and oftentimes goes unappreciated until many years later, perhaps when that child becomes a parent themselves.
These expressions of love, comforting and challenging, so beautifully manifested by our mothers, are also laid out for us in the scriptures today. In our first reading, St. Peter lays into the Jewish people, reminding them that God sent them a savior, his own Son, whom they put to death. He doesn’t sugarcoat what they have done, he can’t ignore their sin. His listeners are cut to the heart by his challenge; they know they have done something terribly wrong. In his love for them, St. Peter offers them hope, a remedy for their wrongdoing. He tells them to repent and to be baptized. And his challenge, which at first produced heartbreak and anxiety in his listeners, becomes a source of joy and life as 3000 are baptized that very day.
In the Gospel, Jesus engages us with the hopeful and comforting words “that he has come that we might have life and have it more abundantly.” There are many things out there in the world and even in our hearts that threaten the gift of life. So many experience anger, self-hatred, jealousy, and selfishness. There are grudges and hurts that we hide from God and try to hold onto, even as they consume us. We live in a society that judges by appearance rather than the heart and which tries to decide which person is worth protecting and which lives can be thrown away. Jesus comforts us with the promise that he is the gate which gathers and protects the sheep. He is the good shepherd who leads the flock to safety and makes sure they have good food and clean water. He is the one who never hesitates to sacrifice himself for his loved ones and who never stops looking for those who have become lost. Jesus’ desire is to comfort us in every moment of our life until that time that we can rest fully and forever in him.
It is important that we accept both the comforts and the challenges that God sends our way if we want to live holy, happy, and healthy lives. For some of you today, God is issuing a personal challenge to draw closer to him especially by letting go of a particular sin. Perhaps, for some of you that are married, he is asking you to trust him more, to be open to the possibility of new life and remove artificial contraception from your marriage. For others, he might be nudging you to forgive someone who has hurt you deeply, even if that person has not apologized or expressed remorse. Many of you will be invited to be more generous in your material support of the Church’s charitable works, here in this parish and throughout the world. Still others will be challenged to let go of the shackles of a personal sin like drinking, pornography, self-abuse, or an unhealthy relationship which only moves you away from God and compromises your dignity. Whatever the challenge, I encourage you to embrace it. God holds your happiness and best interests near his Sacred Heart and whatever he asks you to give up will be richly rewarded. Whenever we begin the process of conversion, he will be there every step of the way to comfort us in our heartache, to soothe us as we move into the unknown and the uncomfortable. Anything he asks us to suffer, he promises to be right alongside us; we are never alone.
So today, we once again thank God for our moms who have loved and comforted us and in doing so, have been God’s hands and hearts in leading us closer to him. And we recognize that in some small way, they have helped prepare us for the ways God also challenges and comforts us throughout our lives. May God bless our moms, living and deceased and may he bless us with trusting and generous hearts for whatever he asks!
