Homily 5th Sunday Easter Year A
“I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus can say this because He is one in being or nature with the Father. This is why He could say to Philip, “When you see me, you see the Father.”
Why? Because the Father and the Son, as well as the Holy Spirit, while they are distinct Persons, are one and the same God.
God the Father sent His Son on a mission: to redeem us from our sins, and to reveal the great mystery that our finite human minds will never fully comprehend: that in the one true God there is a community of three Persons, bound together in love, and that God wants us to be His adopted sons and daughters, part of His family.
In the family of God there is the Father and the Son. And what family would be complete without a mother? In God’s family, our Mother is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the natural Mother of the Son of God who became man, Jesus Christ; and she is our spiritual Mother in the order of grace. Jesus Himself confirmed this before he died on the cross when he said to Mary, in reference to John His disciple, “Behold, your son;” and to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.”
Mary’s role as our spiritual Mother in the order of grace flows from her divine motherhood (as Mother of Jesus): she cooperated in the Incarnation, when she said “Yes” to the Angel and conceived Jesus in her womb; and because she is Mother of Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body, the Church, she is Mother of all the baptized members of the Church. Moreover,Mary cooperated in the Redemption, when she willingly offered her Son on the Cross to pay the price for our sins and merit the grace for our salvation, and this is why she is called the “Co-Redemptrix.” The Catechism teaches that, “For this reason, Mary is a mother to us in the order of grace” (no. 968).
Mary’s role as our spiritual Mother also flows from her relationship with the Holy Spirit. From the first moment of her Immaculate Conception, the Holy Spirit united Mary to Himself in a special way, preserving her from all sin, original and personal, and filling her with grace, because she was destined to be the Mother of God. For this reason, the Church calls Mary the “spouse” of the Holy Spirit.
Mary conceived Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit; and on Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit descended upon the newly formed Church through Mary, who was present.
All the grace that Jesus Christ merited on the cross is distributed by the Holy Spirit, who was called the Sanctifier; and the Holy Spirit uses His spouse, the Virgin Mary, to dispense the grace of Jesus Christ. For this reason, Mary is called the “Dispenstrix” of the grace of Christ.
Our Catechism teaches: “Through Mary, the Holy Spirit brings men into communion with Christ” (no. 725).Pope Benedict XVI nicely summed up the teaching of the Church down through the ages when he said: “There is no fruit of grace in the history of salvation that does not have as its necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady” (May 11, 2007).
Mary’s motherly mediation was first seen at the wedding at Cana: Jesus performed His first miracle through the intercession of His Mother. But Mary’s role as our Mother did not end on earth. Vatican II and the Catechism both teach that her motherly mediation in the order of grace continues now in heaven, where she reigns as Queen, and she will continue in this role until the end of time. “Therefore, the Blessed Virgin Mary is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, and Mediatrix” (CCC no. 969).
This teaching on Mary’s role in our salvation began to unfold in the first centuries of the Church with the Saints who contrasted Mary and Eve; they called Mary the “New Eve” and said, “Death through Eve, life through Mary.”
It continued through the Middle Ages with figures like St. Bernard, who called Mary the “channel” through which all the grace of Christ comes to us.And this teaching has been confirmed by the teaching of Popes in recent centuries, like Pope Benedict whom I just quoted.
Yesterday Pope Francis was in Fatima to mark the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s first appearance to the three little shepherd children there on May 13, 1917. He canonized two of the children, Jacinta and Francisco, who died shortly after the apparitions - the youngest persons to be declared saints in the history of the Church. The third seer, Sister Lucia, will be beatified soon and no doubt will one day be declared a saint as well.
To these three children Mary was sent by God to give us a peace plan from Heaven: to pray the Rosary daily and make sacrifices and do reparation for the conversion of sinners. If we do this, we will have peace: in our homes and families, in our country, and in our world.
On this Mother’s Day weekend, we honor in a most special way our mothers who gave us life; who, after giving birth to us, formed us and educated us in the most important area of all, in love.
But has a great medieval saint, Aelred, says: “We owe Maryhonor, for she is the Mother of Our Lord. By her, we were born, far better than through Eve, because Christ was born of her. She is our mother, the mother of our life [of grace]. . . . She is more our mother than the mother of our flesh. Our birth from her is better, for from her is born our holiness, our sanctification, our redemption.”
In this month of May, let us honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus and our spiritual Mother. And on this Mother’s Day, let us ask God’s blessing upon all mothers, that they may imitate Mary in their love and service inour homes, our families and our communities.