PhotoCardinal O'Connor's Homily




Mother's Day

Cardinal reflects on sacrificial and supportive love in Sunday homily

This is the text of Cardinal O'Connor's homily at Sunday Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral May 9, Mother's Day.

We are very happy to have all mothers here today: mothers of little infants, mothers of as yet unborn, mothers who have lost children and single mothers who are valiantly trying to rear their child or their children alone having resisted the blandishments to have an abortion. We welcome the mothers of all!

Before reflecting on today's Gospel, might I suggest that we pray with deep sincerity throughout this Mass for a just end to the conflict relative to Kosovo. We have been bombing now for five or six weeks. Tremendous obliteration has taken place; we do not know how many lives have been taken. Surely, the erroneous bombing of the Chinese Embassy will be a reminder to all of us that there is no certainty in war.

You may have read in the newspapers of our Holy Father's historic visit with the Orthodox Patriarch in Romania. What did they do together? They prayed for an end to the bombing and for an initiation of true dialogue, not to achieve peace at any price but peace with justice for all so as to make it possible to repatriate those who have been driven from their homes and so cruelly and horrifyingly treated.

A number of you here are familiar with the famed Rockefeller Institute in New York, known throughout the world for its highly sophisticated research work, for the development of advanced techniques, for being always on the cutting-edge of medical science. One of the most famous doctors ever to have been attached to the Rockefeller Institute was Dr. Alexis Carrel, a devout Catholic. As a matter of fact, it was he who, while experimenting, discovered that it was possible for vital organs to live outside the human body. It is safe to say that heart transplants which have become relatively common in our country were made possible through the discoveries of Dr. Alexis Carrel.

The story of Dr. Carrel's being at the Rockefeller Institute in the early years of this century is a very important story in conjunction with today's Gospel. Shortly after Dr. Carrel had been graduated as a medical doctor and completed all his requirements, he was taken on to the faculty of the University of Lyons, a famous medical college in France and all of Europe. But he made a little trip to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France. There he prayed. While he was there other doctors asked him if he would examine a young woman who supposedly had been cured without any medical ministration, all medical efforts having failed. Dr. Carrel examined the young woman and assured the doctors that, in his judgment, there had been no successful medical intervention, and that this had to have been a miracle.

Dr. Carrel returned to the famed University of Lyons where, excitedly thinking he was giving them good news, he told his colleagues about what he considered to be a miracle. His colleagues were highly offended that he would think that any power but medical power could cure anyone. As a result, he lost his position on the prestigious faculty. "God writes straight with crooked lines." It was because of this that Dr. Carrel came to the Rockefeller Institute here in New York and discovered things never known before, things that have made possible the extension of so many lives and the fuller living of life by so many.

Dr. Alexis Carrel undoubtedly believed in the extraordinary statement from our Divine Lord in today's Gospel [Jn. 14:15-21]. "If you love me, keep my commandments." There is nothing sentimental or mushy about this, nothing romantic after the fashion of so many of the empty so-called love songs. "If you love me, keep my commandments." Our Lord doesn't even say, "Keep the commandments, the Ten Commandments of Moses," the first of which is, "Love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, your whole will." The Second Commandment is love one another, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." These are summarized so straightforwardly, so objectively, in the words spoken toward the very end of his life on earth, "If you love me, keep my commandments."

We reflect particularly on this line of the Gospel today not only because it is the Gospel and these are the words of our Lord, but because this is Mother's Day. I think every mother here could tell us that true love reflects far more than the sentimental, than the romantic, than a Hallmark card, however lovely it might be.

Last evening I was at a reception in a hotel in New York for a group that is called the Association for the Help of Retarded Children. You could not possibly have wandered through that vast ballroom without shaking hands with mothers and fathers and with their offspring, some little infants, some well advanced in years, but all retarded, some mildly retarded, some very severely retarded, without being deeply moved. You could not have gone through that ballroom speaking with both parents and the retarded without being profoundly grateful for the sacrifices that those parents have made. Surely, someone tried to convince one parent or another of the validity and the desirability and the common sense of aborting a child tested in the womb and proved to be "defective." They resisted, and now they literally give their lives to those offspring.

That is the marvelous thing about it, and astonishing always to anyone who has spent much of his life, as I have been privileged to do, in working in one way or another with the retarded, the joy that just radiates from parents who have and who take care of a retarded child, sometimes watching that child grow into relative old age. And the parents never complain. It is not an hour-a-day job or an eight-hour-a-day job. It is a 24-hour-a-day job.

Some of you have been in this cathedral when I celebrate Mass for the retarded each year and go around among them and talk with their parents and caregivers and see the tremendous demands that are made on them 24 hours a day. Some of you have been in the cathedral when I have had confirmation, as I do each year for the handicapped, for the wheelchaired, for the blind, for the deaf and for the retarded. Again their parents and caregivers truly pour out their lives to take care of their children or those who have been entrusted to them. Surely, for them, our Lord meant his words, "Whoever loses his life will find it."

Those who have accepted, those who have cared for a child with such problems, an autistic child or an autistic adult, a handicapped, have discovered the meaning of these words. If you lose your life you will find it, find something far superior. Joy just radiates among them. I noted last evening that a whole family was there with a young girl in a wheelchair severely retarded, just rocking back and forth, constantly making all sorts of noises. The sweetest response on the part of her parents and others in the family just radiated with love. Having already read today's Gospel carefully, I thought of our Lord's words, "If you love me, keep my commandments." That is precisely what this family is doing against all odds. They know what is commonly called "tough love." Love demands action and action is expected by those whom we love.

I remember going to Lourdes in 1988. I wrote these words which I truncate here.

"Two individuals impressed me so very much. They were two mothers and a daughter, in one case, a son in the other. The daughter is in her early to mid-20s. She looks like a child. She has no arms and hardly any legs. She is usually in a wheelchair. Only a bit of flesh comes from one shoulder. But she is a rehabilitation counselor in a college here in New York and in a hospital here in New York. She herself is a college graduate, bubbling with joy, radiating faith, asking no one to feel sorry for her. I felt when I met her, 'This has to be one of the most remarkable people I have ever met in my life.' Then I met her mother and you could see where the spirit came from. Her mother was just bubbling with joy, radiant, hoping for a miracle at Lourdes but recognizing that this might never come and willing to care in every way for this daughter who was producing so much. Love requires doing.

"The other was a young lad, about 15 or 16 years of age. Since the age of 8 he has had diagnosed leukemia, and has had to drop out of high school. I found his mother one of the loveliest, one of the most sensitive women I have ever met. She works very hard for a living. It's obvious that her whole life is poured out in her son."

Again, there is not a word of bitterness, just love, unspoken sacrifice, lived sacrifice. This is motherhood at its ideal. This is the motherhood of Mary beneath the cross watching her son beaten to a pulp, dying before her eyes that others might live. It is the real meaning of motherhood.

Some of you mothers here, perhaps, have experienced these same kinds of lives, others of you have reared children without such dramatic difficulties but always with sacrifice on your part, beginning with the sacrifice perhaps of being up all night with a newborn baby, a sacrifice of a child's hurts, whatever they might be, the sacrifice of seeing a son or daughter wander off at an early age, leave the faith not because of your fault. But you are willing to take risks and make sacrifices.

This is very far from so many of the sentimental songs I remember. I recall a love song when I was very young, a romantic ballad utterly absurd, "I would gather stars out of the blue, for you, for you. Over the highways and over the streets carpets of clover I'd lay at your feet." I have never met a woman particularly interested in walking on a carpet of clover, but I am unmarried. It is a nice sentiment, everything that one would do. But what does one do?

You might recall the song from "My Fair Lady" when Freddy is wooing Liza Doolittle and she is fed up with all of his words and promises. She says to him, "Words, words, words. I'm so sick of words. Don't talk of love, show me." True love demands and expects action. When a little child falls and skins his or her knee the child goes running to a mother or a father. It is not enough for the child that you say, "It's all right. I love you." It is not all right. But when you say, "I will kiss it and make it better," and you do, magically it becomes better. Love demands action.

A week or so ago in this cathedral I had Mass for approximately 3,000 young high school seniors just about to graduate. I talked very straightforwardly to them and received a great number of letters from one Catholic girls high school. I mention this not at all looking for any praise. It is merely illustrative of the fact that love not only demands action, but that action is expected by those we say we love. I received this letter from the teacher because I had replied to every one of the significant number of letters I had received. I did not send a form letter in reply. I selected something particularly meaningful from each of these girls' letters and addressed that. If it was a problem I said, "If I could help in any way call me at this number." Here is what their teacher, a wonderful woman, wrote to me.

"Dear Cardinal O'Connor,

"Thank you for the personal love in answering each and every one of the students who wrote to you. You cannot imagine their joy, wonder and amazement upon receiving your letter. They felt so 'special,' so 'unique,' so 'privileged' as they told me! 'Now I feel important,' 'I can't believe he loves me so much,' or 'He really read my letter,' 'I will show it to my parents, my friends,' 'I will frame it,' 'I will put it in the treasury box for my children,' 'I feel so loved by God'...these were some of the expressions that spontaneously came from their heart! I personally delivered each to them in a personal encounter so that they could experience your personal love as well.

"They could not believe their eyes and they were totally surprised by how personal your letters were for them. I saw tears in their eyes: in reading each word of yours they truly experienced the love of God for each one personally. I know that they will never forget this unique moment in their lives.

"Many of them have since gone back to Mass, and some have expressed the desire to help out in their parish church, others in the school. One group offered to prepare their Graduation Mass!

"Many others asked me if they could write you back, and even E-mail you, because they would like to continue the relationship with you!"

The Archbishop of New York is involved in many, many activities whoever he is. It has nothing to do with me as a person. He is involved in many activities in the archdiocese, in the United States and in different parts of the world, it goes with his job. An awful lot of money raising goes with his job too, as well as a great deal of administrative work. When I received all those letters I thought, "This is nice. I will write a single letter to the teacher and ask her to thank all the girls." Then I thought, "No. I told those girls if they needed my help they could contact me. They have contacted me." By way of a simple thing like writing each one a letter, all this sense of the love of God has been generated and they, in turn, now experiencing love, want to turn it into action, returning to Mass and doing things for others.

I do not know when I will finish my tenure as Archbishop of New York, but, having seen these letters, whenever it is, I will retire or die with great joy, not because I have raised a lot of money but because I wrote those letters to young women who so obviously wanted them.

Return to Cardinal O'Connor's Homily Archives