QUEEN FOR A DAY

A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the Bible tells us that they were written on two tablets of stone.  The first tablet contained the first three commandments, which dealt with our relationship with God himself.  The other seven commandments, dealing with man’s relationship with his neighbor, were inscribed on the second tablet, with the Fourth Commandment standing above all others, “Honor thy father and thy mother.”  On this Mothers’ Day, we especially honor our mothers.  Not all of us are mothers, obviously.  But we all have mothers.  We are all children of mothers.  Today, all of us are called upon to honor those mothers.  To visit them if we can, to bring them gifts, to make them happy.  Or if our mothers are no longer living, we can still show our love by praying for their souls.  We entrust them all, living and deceased, to the care of Almighty God, the Blessed Mother, and the patron saint of mothers, Saint Monica.

Monday of this past week was the feast of St. Monica.  She’s a saint who is familiar to most of us, and certainly to all our mothers, famous because she had a rather unruly son who gave her a very hard time.  Despite being a great intellectual and living a life of luxury, this son of hers was infected in both his faith and morals with things that were displeasing to God, and neither scolding nor pleading with him had any effect.  So St. Monica turned to God and pleaded with him instead.  Graces were poured from above on her son, who for a long time chose to ignore them, clinging to his false beliefs in the heresy of Manichaeism, and to the lustful habits of his personal life.  He’s famous for the prayer he made to God:  “Lord, make me chaste—but not yet!”  St. Monica described his as “the son of so many tears.”  Thanks, no doubt, to those tears, he eventually started reading the New Testament and was converted to the true faith, being baptized by the Archbishop of Milan, St. Ambrose.  Monica’s wayward son went on to become perhaps the greatest of the western doctors of the Church, St. Augustine.

And on this Mothers’ Day, when, I hope, your children rally round you to make you Queen for a Day, let them know that flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries are all very nice, but the only way they can ever make you really happy is by living their faith according to God’s commandments.  Are your children at Mass today?  If not, then shed those tears in front of the Blessed Sacrament this morning and pray like St. Monica did for your children’s conversion.

One mother who certainly never had that particular problem was the greatest mother of them all, the Most Blessed Mother.  Most blessed because she was the Mother of God.  And yet, even she shed tears.  Not for her Child’s salvation of course, but for what that Child had to endure for our salvation.  For we are her children too.  “Son, behold thy Mother,” said our Lord from the Cross.  She still sheds those tears—look at the apparition of our Lady at La Salette: despite her crown of glory, she still has her head buried in her hands as she weeps for a mankind that never seems to deviate from our sinful ways. 

Today, we crown her statue here on this Mothers’ Day.  As we honor our own mothers today, so too do we venerate our Blessed Mother also.  For in effect, we all have two mothers, a physical mother who delivered our bodies into this world, and a Blessed Mother who, if we are faithful children, will deliver our souls into heaven.  We love our own mother and we must love the Blessed Mother too.  We their children must do whatever we can to make both of them happy.  To stop them shedding those tears, tears shed for us.

The May Crowning is not just a happy little Catholic tradition.  It’s not just for little girls.  It’s a reminder that our Mother in heaven loves us because she is our Mother.  As a mother, she can’t help but love us.  But do we really love her in return, with the true love of sacrifice?  Are we ready to give up our own little pleasures in order to please her and make her happy?  And we please her by pleasing her Son, by doing his divine will, by following all his commandments—not just the Fourth!