Mothers as Believers and Witnesses Sixth Sunday of Easter A

Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; Psalm 66; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

         Many of us, if not all of us, have been asked why we believe in our Catholic faith. What is the best way to respond? Saint Peter, through today’s second reading, tells us what the best way is to respond. According to Saint Peter, we are to know our faith intellectually, for we are to “Always be ready to give an explanation”. This is excellent advice since people usually want reasons that explain why something should be done and why they should believe in someone or something. Without rational explanations, we can only command someone to do something or believe in something or someone, and this approach is rarely effective.

         When we know our faith and the reasons for hoping in God, then we can provide good reasons for believing and hoping in God. When we provide good reasons for believing and hoping we are, states Saint Peter, to do so “with gentleness and reverence”. The Holy Spirit wants us to gently introduce the faith to others and act reverently towards them, recognizing that they are created in the image and likeness of God.

         Providing reasons for the faith and doing so with gentleness and reverence is not enough, for to most effectively proclaim the truths of our faith we are also to witness by our actions that we are Christians, for as Saint Paul VI taught, “Modern man listens more willing to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, #41)

         The secular holiday of Mother’s Day that we celebrate today reminds us of the importance of teaching and witnessing to what we teach. On Mother’s Day, we honor our mothers. May we honor our mothers not only for being our mothers but also for what they taught us and how they lived. The more mothers live in accordance with their vocations as mothers by their words and actions, the more they reveal God to us.

As the Catechism teaches, “the respective ‘perfections’ of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father”. (CCC 370) 

         This Sunday, this Mother’s Day, may we encounter, through our mothers, some of these infinite perfections of God. God’s gift of a womb to our mothers greatly helped our mothers from the moment they were born to be aware of the importance of valuing relationships, since their wombs serve as a constant reminder to our mothers that we are created as relational creatures who are to affirm and love one another, as a mother affirms and loves the baby in her womb. 

         This relational bodily structure of a woman points us to God, whom we believe is a community of persons by being triune. 

         I do not have a womb, and, as a result, I think, among other reasons, unlike my mother, I have a more pronounced tendency to think just about myself while not being aware of other people. Mothers, and all women, reflect in their very bodies the infinite perfection of God as relational, as a community of persons, as, according to one ancient Christian writer, a lover, the beloved, and the shared love between the lover and the beloved, the Holy Spirit.

         On this Mother’s Day, may we be grateful to all the mothers in our lives, whether biological or spiritual, who affirmed us as beloved and who encouraged us to be more relational by affirming others in God’s infinite love. Blessings – Father Peter