Remain in My Love: A Mother's Living Witness to Christ

There is a quiet kind of love that often goes unnoticed not because it is small, but because it is constant. It is the love that wakes in the middle of the night without complaint. The love that puts others first so naturally that it almost forgets itself. The love that holds a family together not with grand gestures, but with daily sacrifice. This is the love we celebrate in a special way as Mother’s Day approaches.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus speaks words that cut to the heart: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Not as the world loves conditionally, conveniently but as He loves: fully, sacrificially, without counting the cost. This is not a suggestion. It is a command rooted in His very identity, a love that will soon be revealed on the Cross.

If we want to understand what that kind of love looks like in real life, we don’t have to look far. We see it   reflected in the lives of mothers.

A mother’s love mirrors Christ in profound ways. It is patient when exhausted. It forgives when hurt. It gives even when there is little left to give. Mothers know what it means to lay down their lives—not in a single dramatic moment, but in thousands of small, hidden acts of self-giving love. In that way, they live the Gospel not just in word, but in flesh and blood.

But this Gospel challenges all of us, not just mothers. Jesus is calling each one of us into that same pattern of love. And if we are honest, that kind of love can feel overwhelming. It asks more than we think we can give. It stretches us beyond comfort, beyond convenience, beyond ourselves.

Yet here is the truth: we cannot love like Christ on our own. That love is not something we manufacture—it is something we receive. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you,” Jesus says. Before He commands us to love, He invites us to remain in His love.

That is where it begins.

When we remain in His love when we allow ourselves to be loved by Him in our weakness, in our failures, in our incompleteness something begins to change. His love takes root in us. And slowly, sometimes painfully, it begins to flow outward.

This Mother’s Day, we give thanks for the women who have shown us what that love looks like. We honor their sacrifices, their strength, their quiet holiness. But we also recognize that their love is a reflection a glimpse of something even greater: the love of Christ Himself.

And perhaps the best way we can honor them is not just with words or gifts, but by living what they have taught us. By choosing patience when it’s hard. By offering forgiveness when it’s undeserved. By loving when it costs us something.

Because in the end, that is the love that changes the world.

That is the love that leads us to God.

Blessings,

Deacon Mike