FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - MAY 11, 2025

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

After an exciting week of celebrating the election of our new Holy Father, we can spend this Sunday celebrating his bride, our Holy Mother Church, and all of the motherly influences in our lives. On the one hand, this Sunday’s readings instruct us on the trajectory of martyrdom and persecution for the faith, while on the other hand, we celebrate the women in our lives who have given us life, who have raised us, and who have loved us unconditionally. There is a deeply connected link between the two: to bring someone into this world, to give life, and to guide them through their life requires immense suffering on the part of the mother. Even more so, the mother must prepare her children for their own lives of suffering. So why do it? Clearly, there is something far more noble about life that makes suffering worth it. Clearly, a mother’s love will strengthen us through the moments of suffering so that we can achieve that which is noble.

READ THIS SUNDAY'S MESSAGE

While the rest of the world certainly sees the Church as an organizational institution, we understand that we are a part of something far more mystical and far more divine. The Church was not created or instituted by mere human beings; it was founded and brought forth by God Himself, present in the individual Jesus Christ. Therefore, its very essence and identity is mystical and divine, but still explainable. Christ acknowledges his Church as his Bride, and we are part of this Heavenly union. As members of the Church, we build up the Mystical Body of Christ and are united with Christ in this divine Matrimony. Acting in persona christi, those who received the sacrament of Holy Orders (priests, bishops, and especially the Pope) have elected to be spouses of the Church, and spiritual fathers to the faithful, complementing the motherhood of the Church. On a daily basis, we find ourselves living as children of this union with Christ at our head and the Church as our mother. Motherhood itself can only be properly understood in its fullness by looking at the Church: it is formative, it is sacrificial, it is nourishing, and above all, it is loving. When we enter into the walls of our local church at any given time, we are being cradled by the warm and loving embrace of Our Holy Mother Church, which was an ability given to her by first learning it from her Bridegroom on the cross. By giving ourselves over to the motherhood of the Church, we are participating in a divine family, and as the parts that make up the Church, the Bridegroom embraces us and calls us just as a shepherd embraces and calls his sheep.