4th Sunday of the Easter Season - May 8, 2022
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4th Sunday of Easter Season, Mother’s Day, Cycle C
Acts 13: 14, 43-52 + Psalm 100 + Revelation 7: 9, 14b-17 + John 10: 27-30
Holy Spirit Catholic Church: May 8, 2022
On this Mother’s Day, as these children celebrate their 1st Holy Communion,
it is good to reflect upon the Eucharistic nature of motherhood.
The Eucharist is a celebration of the sacrifice of love, of the Son of God laying down his life for us that we might live and giving us a share in His life in this Sacred Meal.
Mothers imitate this sacrificial, life-giving love.
There are many sacrifices of love which mothers make for their child in the nine months of child-bearing as they give their child a share of their life:
the daily physical discomfort and bodily challenges,
eating and drinking what is best for the child and not whatever one wants,
the constant mindfulness of caring for the life living within her womb.
Mothers say by their actions of nurturing the life living within them,
“This is my body given up for you, my blood poured out for you and into you.”
A mother feeds her child with her own life, and as she shares her life with her child,
the child is given life and grows.
After childbirth, mothers continue to live “eucharistic” lives by their countless acts
of sacrificial love: getting up in the middle of the night to respond to the cries
of their child, preparing meals, clothing their children and then washing those clothes,
driving kids here and there and everywhere.
It is impossible to count the ways that mothers lay down their lives for their children.
But the greatest act of love a mother makes is by introducing their child
to the source of all love and life, by passing along their Faith in the Lord Jesus.
I am a believer because my mother is a believer;
I am a Christian because she is a Christian.
I have vivid memories of my mom reading me Bible stories for children,
of her teaching me how to pray,
so I might learn how to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.
She introduced me to a living faith—not to a set of ideas or a philosophy or ideology—but to the living person of Jesus Christ.
By doing so, my mom birthed in me a desire to know, love and serve God.
As she turns 95 years old this month, my mom continues to teach me by her joy-filled life that this new life in Christ is meant to begin here on Mother Earth.
When the evangelist John speaks about eternal life, he uses the Greek word, “ZOE”.
This word refers to a special kind of life which starts now
for those who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow him.
Many Christians think of eternal life as life after this life,
but John’s Gospel reveals a deeper truth.
In this life as we come to know the Risen Lord and are fed with his body and blood,
we experience new life, a life in Christ Jesus which no one can snatch away from us.
For those who live ZOE, we do not grit our teeth and endure our days on this earth, hoping for some kind of reward for our plodding faithfulness.
Rather, the eternal life spoken of in John’s Gospel is a life that is abundant and joyful.
Earlier in this 10th chapter of John where we are gifted with the beautiful image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, Jesus says:
“This is why I came into the world, so that they might have life
and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)
St. Irenaeus, one of the early church fathers and a martyr for the faith, says it this way:
“The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”
Whenever we meet someone who is fully alive, who pours out their life joyfully
by using all they have been given to bring life to others, we are in the presence of ZOE.
Paul and Barnabas live from this life-giving spring of new life in the Risen Christ.
That’s why they can be courageous in the face of persecution.
That’s why when faced with rejection, they do not respond with violence
but simply shake the dust from their feet and move on.
The description given us in Acts of this new life that Paul and Barnabas are living is short and sweet and right to the point: “They were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 13: 52)
The life-giving source of this abundant life in the Risen Christ is the Holy Spirit.
The life-giving source of ZOE is the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Risen Lord to his followers.
The Holy Spirit is the first pledge of this new life.
The Holy Spirit helps us to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.
The Holy Spirit by her gifts draws us deeper and deeper into ZOE.
The Holy Spirit is the singing river of God’s love, the music of the Gospel.
The Holy Spirit, by the gift of fortitude gives courage to the martyrs
to lay down their life completely in witness to the Risen Lord.
To wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb,
an image which makes no sense unless we consider that this is what the Holy Spirit does with our messes, bloody or not.
The Holy Spirit can take what is ugly and frightening in our sight
and make it beautiful and good.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit, to bring new life out of death right here and now.
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi