Bishop Kevin Farrell

The Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas

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Pope Francis: Dear mothers, thank you!

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Nestled deep within Pope Francis’ marvelous Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of Love, is a paean to motherhood. I can think of no greater tribute to those who bore us and nurtured us in unconditional love, than the words of our Holy Father.

Dear mothers: thank you!  Thank you for what you are in your family and for what you give to the Church and the world. A society without mothers would be dehumanized, for mothers are always, even in the worst of times, witnesses to tenderness, dedication and moral strength.

Mothers often communicate the deepest meaning of religious practice in the first prayers and acts of devotion that their children learn. Without mothers, not only would there be no new faithful, but the faith itself would lose a good part of its simple and profound warmth.

A mother who watches over her child with tenderness and compassion helps him or her to grow in confidence and to experience that the world is a good and welcoming place.  This helps the child to grow in self-esteem and, in turn, to develop a capacity for intimacy and empathy.

Mothers are the strongest antidote to the spread of self-centered individualism. It is they who testify to the beauty of life.

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May God bless our mothers and mothers-to-be with the wisdom, courage and faith needed to fulfill their preeminent role in shaping the future.

Mothers’ Day

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Mothers Day

May is the month of our mother. Those words from the familiar Marian hymn also have deep meaning when we celebrate Mothers’ Day on Sunday.

There is no human relationship like that between mother and child. It is the closest human love to divine love because it is always accepting and forgiving. I once read that our story can never be separated from our mother’s story because that is where our story begins.

Our mother is our first teacher, our first catechist, and our first love. As is often the case, it is only when we lose our mother that we realize how her love provided the glue that held our family together, that enabled us to weather the trials of growing up, of becoming a person.

Her roles were myriad: healer, arbiter, consoler, challenger, mentor, pedagogue, and disciplinarian, not to mention the pedestrian but all important roles of cook, housekeeper, manager and font of all knowledge.

It seems strange to bless our mothers because they have so blessed us with their unconditional love.

I salute and ask God’s blessing on all mothers, living and dead, and may we have the grace and strength to live up to their expectations.

Mothers Day

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Abraham Lincoln wrote: “All that I am or ever hope to be I owe to my angel mother.” His mother died when Lincoln was nine, but in those short years her love and teaching had shaped the life of the great president.

All too often we don’t appreciate until later in life how our mother’s love and wisdom shaped us into who we are. Navigating life as adults often awakens in us the many instances in our own childhood when a mother’s unconditional love carried us through the difficulties, real and imagined, encountered on the road to adulthood. Growing up is a very busy time and we take for granted our mother’s loving care,

At birth we are, as it were, a blank slate upon which our mother shapes a life. There are other influences but our mother is the primary sculptor of who and what we will be. It is she who teaches us about God, about love and forgiveness, about patience and perseverance, about kindness and respect and about study and discovery. The witness of her life is our greatest teacher.

This Mothers Day I encourage you to tell your mother how grateful you are for her lifetime of unconditional love that made you the person you are.

If, like Lincoln, your mother has gone to God…tell her anyway. She will hear.