The Pastor's Pen

May 11, 2024

It is not the flashiest job on a rectory staff. I dare say, though, it is one of the most important. Overseeing the efforts to protect God’s children is essential for every parish and school community. Conducting background checks, making sure everyone is current on their training, filling out the paperwork so we can track volunteer compliance throughout the Archdiocese when people move – none of it is glamorous work. But Barb Weber has been doing that here since forever, I think. (Okay, maybe not quite that long.) And after a faithful career that began on January 6, 2003 and spanned twenty-one and a half years, she is now retiring. She began her service as a secretary in the front office of Sacred Heart rectory, in the days before we had volunteers to answer the phones and doors. Hers has always been the pleasant voice, the kind demeanor and the gentle persistence that allowed all the pastors of Sacred Heart to rest in the knowledge that our kids were in good hands. May 30^th will be her last day at work. 

Feel free to stop by any of these remaining Thursdays to say a word of thanks for a “job well done”. Or send a little note or card here at the rectory. Please join me in thanking her for the gift she has been behind the scenes these many years. 

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And a little reflection for this Mother’s day weekend. 

In 2018, Pope Francis instituted a new feast day in the church: Mary, Mother of the Church, to be held on the Monday following Pentecost. In the preface for that feast day, we hear this line of the church praying/believing:

Raised to the glory of heaven, she accompanies your pilgrim church with a mother’s love and watches in kindness over the Church’s homeward steps, until the Lord ’s day shall come in glorious splendor. 

So, what does that look like – for Mary to accompany the church with a mother’s love and to watch over it in kindness? Before I answer that, let me ask a question first. How many of you remember picking a bouquet of dandelions, and putting them into either a home-made basket from Kindergarten or in the smallest Melmac drinking glass you could find? (If you don’t – well, I guess I was poorer than I thought…) Here is what I remember about that.

Presenting that bouquet to mom was always greeted by the most effusive praise, far beyond the worth of what I was giving my her. Little did my kindergarten mind know that I was presenting mom weeds. She always made me feel like I was giving her a priceless gift, like I was giving her something that was amazing and incredible. And I knew that I wanted to KEEP on doing that, keep on giving my heart away. Isn’t that what “a mother’s love” does? Isn’t that the ‘watching over in kindness’ of our efforts to love even when it is not perfect that the preface speaks of? 

We didn’t know what we had to give away was worthless in the eyes of the world. We did not know that we were offering weeds and not gold or silver. But a mother’s love taught us that any time we give away our heart in love, it is golden; any time we go out of our way to brighten up another’s life, it is so precious. AND, (and I dare say this is the important part,) in so doing, we learned this truth about life – that the most important thing that matters, yea, even the ONLY thing that matters, is that we never stop giving our hearts away in love. What matters to a mother’s heart, was that we were learning how to love. And we were learning how to give our hearts away. That was more precious than gold to her.

So, make the shift. Though I am not sure what the Mediterranean equivalent of dandelions were in the time of Jesus, don’t you believe that whatever it was that the young Jesus brought to Mary was treated in the same way – as if it was the most precious reality in the whole world? And Mary, in those moments, formed and shaped the human heart of Jesus as surely as our mothers formed and shaped our human hearts. Mary formed and shaped the human heart of Jesus.

It was a lesson that Jesus carried throughout his life. The Gospels are full of all the ways that Jesus made giving away what he had to give the bedrock of his life. So much so, that in the garden, as he sweated blood, he knew EXACTLY what love was asking of him – to give away his heart to all of human kind for the ransom and forgiveness of sins. All because of a mother’s love that watched over the heart of Jesus in kindness.   

So, this Mother’s day, during this month dedicated to Mary, and especially on May 20^th, the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, let Mary stand before all of us with a mother’s love, ready to watch over our hearts in kindness, ready to convince us that the gift you give to her Son– the love we give away in service to him and his church, is PURE GOLD... And that she will inflame our hearts to want to keep loving her Son, over and over and over again. 

My adult self knows now that the dandelions I was giving her were weeds. I would never have known from my mom’s reaction. It didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that I was learning to give my life away. And that is all that ever matters to Mary. And all that ever matters to her Son.

Happy Mother’s Day….