We will make our dwelling with her!

Homily
6th Sunday of Easter
Mother's Day
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center KU
9 May 2010

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Mother's Day is easy to celebrate in the Catholic Church. Our tradition is especially well equipped to celebrate Mother's Day. You don't have to look very far to see our devotion to our mother Mary. She has an icon in every Catholic church I've ever been to. Tons of our Churches are entrusted to her motherhood. Of all world religions, no one celebrates motherhood like the Catholic Church. There is not even a close second. She has many of her own feast days that we celebrate with great joy. No one celebrates the necessary role of a mother in the history of salvation like the Catholic Church honors Mary. No one else proclaims a mother to be the most perfect person to ever live, and the first member of heaven, like the Catholic Church honors her mother Mary. No one proclaims the great and unthinkable inversion of what is first and what is necessary like the Catholic Church does when it proclaims Mary to be the mother of a God who is a Father, but has no father. Mother's Day is easy to celebrate in the Catholic Church, so much do we love our own mom's, and together celebrate our collective mom - Mary, the mother of the Church, and the mother of Jesus, and the mother of all who belong by adoption to Her Son. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers from the Church who knows how to love a mother!

In his farewell discourse to his disciples, Jesus tells them not to be troubled, because although he is leaving, He is returning to be with them through his Holy Spirit. On the surface, this seems like a bad trade - Jesus in the flesh for a Jesus in the spirit. It seems like a bad trade from the tangible and real to the spiritual and theoretical. Yet listen closely to Jesus' promise. Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Jesus' promise is that He will be as present to us interiorly, through the working of His Holy Spirit, as He was exteriorly in speaking to his disciples. Jesus' promise is actually more, that in making Himself interiorly present He will be more present to us than we are to ourselves, and what is more, He will be more consistently present to us than if He did not ascend to the Father.

Jesus is offering an incredible trade. And who was the first to take him up on his offer? It was Mary, of course. Mary, the ultimate mother, is the model of love for all of humanity, man and woman alike. She was the first to hear this invitation of Jesus to love Him and in keeping His word, to prepare a place within her in which God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit could fully dwell. Mary heard this invitation of Jesus to love Him by a special gift of grace even before He was conceived in time. Mary loved God pefectly and so she met Jesus through the angel Gabriel's words before Jesus was conceived in her. The angel Gabriel said to Mary in the beginning exactly what Jesus is saying to his disicples near the end, that if one loves Jesus, Jesus will come to him, and make his dwelling with him. By the same Holy Spirit that gives us the opportunity to conceive Jesus in our hearts, Mary conceived Jesus in her womb.

In the order of creation, we learn that man was created first, although he was not complete without woman, and was never created to be alone. So in the end, it's not ultimately important who was created first. In the more important order of redemption, in the recreation of the new Jerusalem which is now the eternal dwelling place of God, we see clearly that womanhood, and more specifically, motherhood, comes first. The Holy Trinity, including the eternal Father who can have no other Father, claims Mary as its only mother. We will come to him and make our dwelling with him - that is Jesus' promise to his disciples as He is preparing to leave them. Yet that Holy Trinity came to Mary first, to be born of a mother. The world was first created through the loving yes of a Father, and the world became the dwelling place of man made in the image and likeness of God. Yet the Father desired that the new Jerusalem be created through the loving yes of a mother, our mother, and through this loving yes that same creation has become more importantly the eternal dwelling place of God. It is by Fatherhood that we were created. It is through motherhood that we are the eternal dwelling place of God.

In the month of May, and particularly on Mother's Day, we honor Mary as our mother, and we seek her intercession and example as we all try to love God enough, and to listen to His word, so that a space may be opened within us for God to dwell. We await with Mary our mother, the coming of the Holy Spirit, which impels us to give birth to Jesus, and his redemptive love, by our loving yes to the vocation God has given to us and to no one else. Today, in a most special way, we honor our mothers, who by their loving yes in imitation of Mary, first opened a space in which we might be conceived, and by fidelity to their vocation to be mothers, gave us life in this world. Just as life is received through a mother, so also is a vocation to first receive Jesus and to give birth to him, first received through the example of our mothers. Our mothers are the closest to us, just as anyone who is close to Mary is close to Her Son Jesus. They love us the most, just as Mary teaches us howe we might love Jesus the most. Our moms are our first ones to teach us to listen to Jesus' words to trust His love, and to not be afraid, for even if a mother could forsake or forget Her baby, still will God remember us, and keep us secure in His love. If the Holy Trinity made itself, and the future of the world, depending upon the loving yes of a mother, our incomparable mother Mary, may we entrust ourselves ever more completely to our mothers, and honor them with our love on this beautiful Mother's Day!