Two weeks ago, we celebrated Mothers’ Day in order to honor our physical mothers, who brought us into this world and nourished and took care of us when we were children.During the whole of this month of May, we honor our spiritual mother, Mary, Our Lady, who takes care of all our spiritual needs as mediatrix of all the graces we receive.With today’s great feast of Pentecost, we honor yet a third mother, we have yet another Mother’s Day in the month of May. The mother we honor today is Holy Mother Church.The Church is our mother because she is the bride of Our Lord Jesus Christ and is so united with Christ that we say she is His Mystical Body. They are, as it were, two in one flesh.United together, Our Lord and His bride bring forth children unto eternal life. They do this by governing, teaching and sanctifying their children, that is, Catholics. We are born into new life by baptism, we are healed by confession and we are nourished by the Holy Eucharist. Our Mother the Church does all these things for us.Today’s feast is like the birthday of our mother the Church. While Our Lord is the head of the Church, the Holy Ghost is her soul. He descended upon the Apostles today and gave them the spiritual gifts they needed to fulfill their priestly functions. The day of Pentecost is the day when they began their mission of going to all nations to baptize people and bring them into the Church. It was the day that the Church came forth and manifested herself to the world.We have a duty to love all of our mothers, and Holy Mother Church is no exception. We must be grateful to be Catholics and desire to do our part, in our life, to assist our mother the Church.This is all the more true today, when our mother is being attacked. What we are witnessing today has often been compared to Our Lord’s Passion. In past centuries, the Church at times resembled Our Lord in His public life or even His triumph over His enemies. But today, she resembles Our Lord on the Cross, in that she is wounded and being disfigured by her enemies.One of the most painful aspects of this passion is that, just as Our Lord was betrayed and abandoned by the Apostles, so too the Church today is being betrayed by the successors of the Apostles. The Church remains the Spotless Bride of Christ in herself, but her external appearance has been disfigured by false teaching and bad liturgies.It is like a difficult situation in a family. Consider if the sons of a family started honoring other women as their mother than their actual mother. This would take away from their proper mother the honor due to her. Say they brought those women over their house, gave them presents, and told them they loved them, all in the presence of their own mother.This is similar to today’s Popes showing all this respect to false religions: kissing Korans, hosting Pachamama idols, honoring fake Anglican prelates, praying with leaders of all different religions. These things make it seem like these false religions are able to be mothers of souls, as if they can lead souls to Heaven, as if they can do only what the bride of Christ can do.
