Able to Love.

This weekend was a busy and important weekend. On Saturday I graduated from college, both very exciting and slightly terrifying, but something I never would have been able to accomplish without the love and support of family and friends. This realization, that it was not only congrats to me, but to all those who invested in and supported me over the years, this accomplishment was ours, not mine.


This weekend was also mothers day, what a perfect time for a graduation ceremony. All the mothers too proud to contain their excitement not only celebrating their child's accomplishments, but then also being celebrated for all the sacrifices they have made.
(here is a link to a cool video about moms, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZOgOcauDds).


As if by design the readings from this weekend were more than fitting for the events taking place. I had the rare opportunity of attending mass with my mother on mothers day at Bukowski, the on campus chapel, with Fr. Stan as the presider. The title for this post, and the meaning given to these words is born out of the inspiring words from his homily, words that evoked a response in my heart.


John 15:9-17, "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. remain in my Love... Love on another as I love you... No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." We often hear about God's love, "God so loved the world that he gave his only son" or "God created man out of love, God created all things as a result of his steadfast love." This of course is all very true good and well. However there is something that is always over looked, someone that is always over looked, perhaps sometimes taken for granted. This of course, is a mother. After all how often do we over look, or take for granted our own mother?  Mary, the mother of God, the ever virgin, the God bearer, theotokos, the first of us to answer a call with a simple and humbling yes. "God so loved the world that he sent us his only son" Mary so loved that not only did she say yes, but she raised the child Jesus. Where others may have said no, the only word on her lips was yes.


This love did not end with a simple yes, no mothers love ends at the conception of their child or even the birth. This is just the beginning of their love. The true love follows at the early hours of the morning as a new born cries, this love continues as the child continues to grow an demands more and more from their mother, sometimes offering nothing more in return than heartache. This is the love that a mother gives to her child this is the love that Mary showed to her son.


It is only as a result of the love offered to us by our mothers that we are able to love. It is only in the experiencing of love that we are able to love. It is only because of our mothers that we are able to love. As I look at the gospel with Jesus saying "Love one another as I have loved you" we are only able to do this because he was first loved by his mother and as a result learned most fully in a human way how to love.


We do not love because we are told to, we only truly love because first we were loved and as a result we are now able to love.