Sixth Sunday of Easter
Fr. Anthony Brankin
May I offer my warmest and most affectionate Mother’s Day greeting to all our Mothers, our fathers—our parishioners, and in a special way to our First Communion children who today crown the Blessed Virgin Mary. Did you know that yesterday these littlest ones received their First Holy Communion? For the first time in their lives they received the Body of Christ. We pray that it may be the first of a million communions in their lives and a source of grace for their families. Also they received the mantle of Mary’s protection in the Brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. And now today, our darling children place a beautiful crown on Mary who becomes the Queen of their Hearts, the Queen of the Holy Eucharist.
Think of how it all fits together: Jesus, the Crowning of Mary, First Communion and families and Mother’s Day. Today and yesterday—and everyday, it is all about life and love. We see that Love and Life are always inseparable. There is no love without life, nor is there life without love. And the greatest example of this is a mother’s love for the children she bears. In love she has conceived life, and the life she carries is the fruit of her love.
Life in the Womb
About thirty years ago I made a statue of the Virgin Mary with Child—but not the Christ Child in her arms. in this statue the Child was still within—within her womb. In other words, she was pregnant. Now, in those days a pregnant Blessed Virgin was a pretty unique subject—at least in the United States. I know in Old Catholic countries there are many such representations of the Virgin with the Child Jesus in her womb. But I had decided to make this statue—Mary at the very beginning of her Motherhood—with Jesus hidden in her womb—as my personal response to what I saw happening in our country at that time.
You see, the idea was starting to take hold that love between two people was only about pleasure and if human life threatened to get in the way of that pleasure then you should prevent it or destroy it. And a whole culture and way of life grew up around this notion of love for love’s sake. Actually we became a whole new country where love was about love and nothing more. It was no longer about children or family or life or sacrifice or duty. Love was about what gives me pleasure, and nothing more. This is how we got to the insane world of gay marriage and constant divorce and abortion and gender freedom—this is a sad world of Bruce Jenner and the Kardashians and Elton John—this is the craziness of Michelle Obama telling us what family and love are all about. You choose your pleasure and your partner as you wish and if you want children—there is always test tubes. The moment that we think that we can have love without children we destroy families and we destroy love.
How beautiful that our Catholic Faith always makes the connection between love and life—that if love is to be genuine and generous it must be open to having children. Traditional Catholic societies always understood this connection. Courtship and love and marriage were always very carefully structured with chaperones and periods of engagement and dowries and formal weddings. Those customs were developed to protect the girls of the village and their future children. The people in the old days knew that the girls were the most important persons in the village because they were the future mothers of the village. And each girl must be protected and safeguarded by every possible means because she was the one who bore life and guaranteed the future of her people. Her love was sacred.
Real Men and Women
How unlike today—where we have allowed our women to become playthings of powerful men. We have allowed our daughters and sisters to become toys for rude, crude party boys whom everyone thinks is cool because they can burp and drink at the same time while they are watching the Super Bowl. That is not how our Catholic ancestors ever regarded men and women. We always understood that the relationship of men and women must be respectful and reverent. Because love creates life—creates families—creates the future.
Did you ever wonder why we Catholics are the only ones left in the world who do not believe in contraception? Or why we Catholics seem also to be the only ones left who say that gay marriage is immoral? Because we still believe that there is no married love other than that between a man and a woman who say to each other— I love you so much—and I trust you so much—that we will raise whatever children God gives us—and raise them in the love of a mother and father—raise them in the love of a family and in the love of God. And we will not prevent children by any means fair or foul—by pills or chemicals or devices. And we will trust God, the Lord of Life—to see us through the difficult times. Because we know that any love that is not between a man and a woman and open to children is sterile and a dead-end. It is not normal or natural because it cannot give life.
Catholics are about family—and everyone knows that and the moderns are either angry with us for that or they are jealous—but at least we see how it all fits together—creation—the planets, the trees, the flowers and fruits, the fields and plains, mothers and fathers—boys and girls—beautiful because they come from love and give life. Our children also come from love and they have life and now life to the full because Jesus is within them in Holy Communion. And they crown Mary on Mother’s Day as their way of thanking Mary and they thank their own Mothers (and Fathers!) for the life they possess and for the love they receive.