The Vocation of Mothers and of All Women

Today is Mother's Day. We celebrate the woman God destined to bring each of us, men and women, into the world. Each of us is a word of God, as Jesus is the Word of God.  As I reflected on my mother and who she was for my siblings and me, the following came to me in a dialogical prayer with my mom:

"Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Thank you for mothering me to this very day."

"You are welcome, Dort. And thank you for being a spiritual, caring and loving mother to so many children, big and small, young and old.  In your work as counselor you mothered many!  Thank you!"

"You are welcome, Mom.  Mom you taught us to serve others, to help others, to care, to provide for other people's needs. Mom, you gave us strength, love, faith and confidence!  Thank you!"

"You are welcome, Dort! Do not lose faith. I know you struggle with how the Church has treated women and even how Mary's culture treated her.  Be not discouraged.  As a disciple of Christ, as a baptized Christian, you are sent to bring Good News to others, to proclaim Christ's resurrection, to open the Scriptures as much as any priest ordained by a bishop. You are asked to carry our your baptismal vocation without the public recognition given to a priest. Your vocation as a woman was  confirmed  by Jesus, who called women to spread the Good News and to proclaim the resurrection--in fact the first person to proclaim the resurrection was a woman."

"God does not will that you live out your call in the public eye but privately. Your vocation  to proclaim the Good News, to share your faith in Christ Jesus, to bring others to Christ--the call of every priest ordained by a bishop--was  given to you at your baptism.  Cherish your call, Dort, to do as Mary, the mother of Jesus, did,  that is  to bring Jesus to the world, and also to do as Mary Magdalene did, proclaim the Good News of Jesus' resurrection.  Proudly, carry out the role God has ordained for you as a woman. The baptismal call to proclaim your faith and to share the Good News is as real and as needed as the call a priest receives in his ordination by a bishop!"

"Thank you, Mom, for these words of wisdom!  You certainly brought Jesus to me by your works of faith and love and hope in Christ Jesus; and you brought me to Jesus! In every way as a mother you lived out the call you received at your baptism!   Thank you!"

"You are welcome, Dort! I love you!"

"I love you, too, Mom!"

St. John's Witness to Jesus, the Word Made Flesh

Today we celebrate the feast of St. John, the Evangelist, the one invited to Mount Tabor where Jesus' glory was revealed, the one who leaned on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper and who accompanied Jesus into the Garden of Gethsemane, the one who stood beneath the cross with Mary on Good Friday and to whom Jesus entrusted His Mother,  and the one who, seeing the burial cloths in the empty tomb truly believed that Jesus had risen and that death had no power over Him.

In today's liturgy, John addresses us in his first letter: "Beloved: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life--for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us--what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1 John 1: 1-4).

"What was from the beginning" when the world was made was THE WORD, the Son of God, the one who became the Incarnate God born of the Virgin's womb on Christmas day!  That second person of the Blessed Trinity is the one John had seen with his own eyes, is the one John had looked upon and had touched with his own hands.  John had seen THE ETERNAL WORD of God in the person of Jesus Christ. To this second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnate God, John gives testimony and proclaims Him to us so that, with John, we, too, may have fellowship with the Father and with the Son through the power of the Holy Spirit.

What a gift!  God wants fellowship with us!  He held nothing back so that we would have access to the Divine Word by our lives made holy by Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection.  John tells us  that he  and the other apostles proclaimed and gave witness to the WORD MADE FLESH "so [their] joy may be complete" (1 John 1: 4).

If you and I are looking for joy, we will experience such when we, too, give witness to the Lord and proclaim Him to the world of our day, when we, too,  are light in the darkness of the world, as Jesus was and is to this very day!