Bulletins
May 12, 2013
Download the Bulletin as a PDFHappy Mother's Day!
Happy Mother's Day to every mother, every grandmother, every godmother and every spiritual mother!
In these days leading up to Pentecost it is moms who can remind us that nothing makes a Christian happier than loved ones who love us more than anything and who also love God more than they love anyone. Moms want us to be good, faithful, strong and courageous so that when this life is over they can see us in heaven.
The mother of the then greatest soccer play in the world was asked if she was proud that her son was captain of his national team and headed to the finals of the World Cup. This particular footballer had famously stopped living as a Christian and had taken up Buddhism instead. His stalwart mother said something to the effect that "I will have something to celebrate when he comes back to the Church in which I raised him". That's a Catholic mom.
Perhaps you are familiar with the admonition said so often by Queen Blanche, wife of King Louis VIII and mother of St. Louis, to her son: "I love you my dear son, as much as a mother can love her child; but I would rather see you dead at my feet than that you should commit a mortal sin."
Yet, motherhood is not the only or even the primary holy office concerned with the salvation of others. Baptism and Confirmation confer to every Christian grace for their own salvation and also for the salvation of others. Faith in Christ and Baptism are necessary to get to heaven. Love of God and Confirmation demand that we help other people get to heaven. Think of the five offices in the Church that require one to be confirmed: Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, Religious Life, Confirmation Sponsor and Godparent. What all five have in common is that they each involve a public promise to be partly responsible for the salvation of others.
It is God's will that every human be in full communion with Him through the Church He established two thousand years ago, endowing her with the holy sacraments and the guidance of shepherds who would not always be holy but whose chief and prince, St. Peter and his successors, would have the assistance of the Holy Spirit so that minimally nothing taught with his full authority would be erroneous. It should be the joy of every Christian to lead non-believers toward faith in God and to bring believers to the sacraments, to pray for and with each person. It should be the consolation of every Christian mother to see salvation shine down on the little ones God brought into existence through her.
God bless you!
Fr. Christopher J. Pollard
