Homily for May 10, 2026 - Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 8:5-8,14-17
1 Peter 3:15-18
John 14:15-21

VI Easter Sunday (A)
5/10/26

I might have already mentioned this before—my favorite movie of all time is Interstellar.   If you haven’t seen it, the name alone tells you it’s a space film;    what the name doesn’t tell you is that at the core of the film is love: particularly the love b/w parent & child.   There’s a line by Cooper, the father, who is reflecting on a conversation he had with his now-deceased wife. He said, “Now we’re just here to be memories for our kids.”   In a merely physical world, that would be true.   And we should appreciate the truth of that statement: that at the basic emotional and physical level, parents & those who care for us in our upbringing,   help create memories for our future (good or bad).

I think the movie wrestles with the limits of a merely physical world. In a way, it wants to say that what we can see    can’t be all there is. And we profess that we believe in one God who is the creator of all things, visible and invisible.   So, when Jesus sits down with His disciples on the night He was to be handed over,   He is preparing them for His departure. He is telling them, in a way, that not only was He with them to create memories for them and all future disciples.   No, not only that—it goes much deeper; He says, I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Jesus won’t leave us orphans in (at least) two ways: 1) He sacramentally leaves with us His own Body and Blood. This is my Body. This is my Blood.   When the disciples recognized Him in the breaking of the bread at Emmaus, Jesus vanished,   but Jesus didn’t leave them;   He was still with them in the Eucharist.   And, 2) Jesus doesn’t leave us orphans b/c He tells us, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.   Jesus is our first effective Advocate for us with the Father.   Once He returns to heavenly glory,   He tells us:   the Father will send another Advocate, the Holy Spirit.   And, when one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity are at work, the whole Holy Trinity is there!

In fact, we cannot have the Eucharist (the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood) w/o the Holy Spirit—our own Holy Ghost parish logo reflects this: it’s the Holy Spirit who brings us the Eucharist, the Bread from Heaven.   The Lord Jesus will not leave us orphans but will always come to us.   He CONtrasts this   with the extreme alternative: orphaned disciples.   Jesus saw what that would look like   when crowds had gathered and He saw them like sheep w/o a shepherd!   But this is Jesus, the same God who spoke through the prophet Isaiah: Can a mother forget her infant, be w/o tenderness for the child of her womb?    Even should she forget, I will never forget you.

It’s telling that Jesus reminds us today, Mother’s Day, that He will not leave us (His disciple) orphans. On the day that we express gratitude and thanksgiving not only for the gift of being born, but the gift of being nurtured through their body/for the gift of being cared for—each to her own ability, but always with the greatest love.   That’s why the maternal/paternal images of God are so strong—b/c human parentage is an image of God’s parentage of us!   God loves us unconditionally, not according to our accomplishments or good behavior.   And when a parent is upset with their child, (unless the parent is a narcissist)   the mother/father is upset (ultimately) b/c it’s something that will cause harm to the child.

In the same book of the prophet Isaiah, God tells us: Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad b/c of her… Rejoice with her in joy… so that you may nurse and be satisfied… that you may drink with delight at her abundant breasts!   This is a prophecy of Jerusalem, the heavenly city,   the heavenly source of maternal comfort & care for all her children.   This city is dwells in heaven with God, the bride of Christ, Holy Mother Church—and we receive a foretaste of that heavenly city at every Mass, as we are fed with delight from her milk, the source of life, from this Altar!

The Church is our Mother!   We need to be grateful for her, as we are grateful for the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we are grateful for our own biological and spiritual mothers.   When Jesus promised us: I will not leave you orphans,   He meant that He would leave us His own Body and Blood/He meant that Him and the Father would send us another Advocate, the Holy Spirit/He meant that He would leave us the virgin Mary as our Mother/He meant that He would leave us His Bride, the Church, as our Mother.

My brothers and sisters in Christ,   we are not orphans.   I know there are times we feel abandoned and neglected,   but we must be certain that we have a Heavenly Father who cannot help but to love us, even when we feel far from Him—to the point of sending us His Son to suffer with us and for us.    God offers His paternal and maternal care for each of us.   So, if, on the exhortation of St. Peter, anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,    now you have several reasons to share with them why your hope in God is so great: He has never left us.    He came, not only to create memories for us,   but He actually continues to create memories in our lives b/c He is still active throughout our life, b/c He has never abandoned us.