Easter Sunday 4 - B

My brothers and sisters!
Today is Mother’s Day. Happy are those who are mothers! What will you do on Mother’s Day? I have no idea about your custom here. In my country we celebrate Mother’s Day on December 22. I also don’t know much about this celebration. I have no mother anymore. She returned to her maker when I was still a boy of twelve years old. One thing I remember when she died. One of my cousin said that I had no love for my mother because I cried the least not as my brothers and my sister did. But she didn’t know how I cried in my room, in secret. I loved my mother but I let her go after having seen her suffering very much during her illness for a couple of years.
After a year of her death, I heard from my cousin that my father was looking for a new wife. I was angry. I didn’t agree. I said: If he marries again, I won’t know him anymore, I will go, and I will leave him. You know, these words that I said were told to my father. Before I went to bed that night, he called me and he said: Fut, he called my name, don’t worry, I will not marry again, because I can see your Mom in your face! I couldn’t hold my tears going out. I knew how he loved my mother.
He said that he could see my mother in my face. It means that I bring in myself the characteristic of my mother. That’s true because I am her son; I am her own flesh and blood. If you want to know how my mother looks like, just look at me. But she was prettier …
My brothers and sisters,
In the second reading we hear St. John said: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yes, we are children of God. Jesus has made us His brothers and sisters by his death and resurrection and by our faith in Him. If we are children of God, we also should take upon ourselves the characteristic of our heavenly Father.
Now the question is: what is the character of our heavenly Father? Jesus says in Luc 6, 36 “Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful” That is our Father’s character. He is merciful. We can see His mercy when He accepts the sinners, when He pardons the people who hate Him, the people who persecute Him.
If we love reading the Bible, we will find many wonderful characteristics of our Father in Heaven. Jesus himself presents the Father. If we know Jesus better, we will know better the Father.
In the Gospel today, Jesus talks about one of His characteristic: to care as a shepherd. We can see His love in the image of the good shepherd. We can see what relation he has with his sheep. He knows the name of each of his sheep and the sheep know his voice. He lays down his life for the sheep and the sheep obey him wherever He leads them.
Actually this image does not differ from an image of a mother. We can see a life of a good shepherd in the life of a good mother. How she loves her children, how the children love her. The children, even as a baby, know her voice. How she cares of her children. I remember how my mother helped me in bathroom, when I was a young boy of course, how she brushed my feet; how she shampooed my hair … She was a true shepherd.
When I came to know Jesus and to have faith in Him, especially when I entered into the religious life, I realized that the love that Jesus taught was the same love as I experienced in being loved by my mother. I am sure that for most of us, the first and the greatest love that we have ever had is the love from our parents, and especially from our mother. We have to thank God because of this. I know some people may find it difficult to love because they didn’t have this experience of being loved, while they were young. In Latin it is said: nemo dat quod non habet. It means: we cannot give what we do not have. So we only can love if we have love, or if we have been loved.
My brothers and sisters, if there are some among you who have a different experience; maybe you feel that your mother did not love you as you wished she would have … I want to tell you. Don’t be angry with her. Forgive her! Maybe she also had a poor love. She might have had a very, very little experience too in being loved. Maybe her father or her mother didn’t know how to love her when she was young, so she also didn’t know how to love you.
But we have to cut this chain of unknowing to love. We have to love our children with a true love, so that they can grow as God wants us to raise them. We have to learn how to love. So come to the source of love itself, Jesus Christ. We will learn from Him. He will teach us. You will be a good parent; you will be a good mother, like a good shepherd, like Jesus the Lord. Happy Mother’s Day! God bless you! Amen.