4th Sunday of Easter – May 11, 2025
Mother’s Day Adoption Mass
Most of us appreciate the scripture passages that speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd – the guardian of God’s flock. We appreciate them even though in our day and age – in our culture – most of us aren’t at all familiar with shepherds and sheep. Why, then, does this image of Jesus resonate so much with our spirits?
I suspect that the answer is found in the very words of Jesus: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. … No one can take them out of my hand.” … “I know them, and they follow me.”
What Jesus implies in these words is that there is familiarity – a God-initiated relationship with every member of his flock, regardless of how closely that member follows the shepherd or how far that member may stray. Jesus’ words capture the essence of our Christian faith, don’t they? “God – not us but God – so loved the world – so loved you and me – that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
With a foundation for faith rooted in God’s initiative, Jesus beckons us to embrace life in a very different way than how we and our world often engage it. … He calls us to listen consciously and deliberately for his voice in the depths of our hearts – in the midst of love and joy, pain and anguish, and the cries for mercy and justice that we see and hear all around us. … And he assures us that we are always safe and accepted in the embrace of his God and Father who has loved us first.
In 2018, our beloved Pope Francis issued a beautiful exhortation on the call to holiness in today’s world. It’s entitled Gaudete et Exsultate – “Rejoice and be glad.” The Holy Father began his reflections by reminding all of us that this great goal of holiness is well within our reach. He spoke about the saints who accompany us on our journey of life and faith and then pointed out that not every saint who is worthy of our attention is already beatified or canonized. Instead, he spoke of “the saints next door.”
Listen to his words: “I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance, I see the holiness of the Church. Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them ‘the middle class of holiness.’”
Today we celebrate and give thanks for those women – our mothers – who, by the grace of God at work within their lives, have accepted the call to holiness and have sought to live it authentically: Mothers who have given us life – mothers, who, though unable to care for the lives they bore, for love of God and life itself, entrusted those precious gifts to the care of others – mothers who opened their hearts to children desperately in need of a loving and nurturing home – grandmothers – foster mothers – and all who have nurtured and cared for life.
It is a common truth that we learn how to love from being loved and from seeing love in action. It’s as simple and profound as that. And that’s why it’s so important for us to recognize that underneath all the commercialism that can easily attach to this day, there lies a deeper, sacred reality: we honor mothers because in almost every case, our first encounter with love came from our mother. That love is hardly a sentimental love – but rather, a sacred love – a selfless, sacrificial, forgiving love – a God-initiated love that mirrors the very love of our good shepherd, Jesus.
Once again, Pope Francis demonstrated his gift of being able to tap the sentiments that so many of us embrace this day. “To love like Jesus,” the Holy Father begins, “is not easy because we are often so weak. But just to try to love as Christ loved us shows that Christ shares his own risen life with us. In this way, our lives demonstrate his power at work – even in the midst of human weakness.”
We give thanks today, then, for the blessing of those who have tried to the best of their God-given abilities to protect, support, sustain and love God’s gift of life – a blessing that has been so generously given to each of us through the lives of our mothers.
By their example, they teach us that it is possible to love as Jesus loved – generously and selflessly. … They also remind us that they – and we – become signs of the Good Shepherd’s presence in the world when we open our lives to his love and make it our own.