6th Sunday of Easter (Year B) and a Happy Mother's Day!

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6th Sunday of Easter (Year B)

May 10, 2015

MOTHER'S DAY

First Reading:             Acts 10:25-26. 34-35. 44-48

Responsorial Psalm:    Ps. 98:1. 2-3. 3-4

Second Reading:         1 John 4:7-10

Gospel:                        John 15:9-17

"As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another."

Reflection:

            During his mass at Casa Santa Marta on May 22, 2014, Pope Francis said "a healthy Christian is a joyful Christian." He further noted that "there is no such thing as a sad Christian – stressing that it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us to love and fills us with joy."

            It doesn't mean that to be a Christian we need to be numbed with sufferings and pains. Absolutely, not! Only the dead is indifferent to such feelings. These tribulations are but inevitable in this world. Could you imagine a world or a life without such painful experiences?

            A healthy Christian knows all these trials of any sort. But accepts it happily for he/she knows there is vindication and exultation in the end of line. So Jesus exhorts us to remain in His love so that our "joy may be complete." For just as He does not exempt Himself from sufferings, He lead us the way to face it, knowing that there is always sunshine after the rain.

            A mother knows this joyful living amidst crisis in her life. She is a concrete example of a Christian who cried during her sleepless nights worrying the future of her children. Yet she manages to smile seeing she has a long way to go to offer her life to her husband and children. That's why in every son's or daughter's success there is no other person happier than a mother who sacrificed from womb to tomb.

            HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL!