Episode Details

This past Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day so today, enjoy a special reflection from Keara Ette about abundant love.

Keara Ette's Mother's Day Reflection:

Good morning and Happy Mother's day to all! Mother's Day is a kind of a mixed bag sometimes. It seems to be great for florists. Heard there was a shortage of a lot of different kinds of flowers recently. Great for greeting card makers. Um, the jury is still out on whether school teachers like it. They're sort of charged with creating lots of creative crafts.

For the kids to bring home to the mothers and grandmothers and godmothers. Uh, churches love it. We love packing the house on Mother's day. Before pandemic times we would add extra masses and pull out extra folding chairs. Um, And it is complicated. For those of us who have lost a mother or a mother figure.

Mother's day. Is heartbreaking. For those who long to be mothers. Where those who never really had a mother's love the way they deserved.

It's heartbreaking for those who have lost a child.

But Mothers do you deserve the praise that we give. And any discounts that you might find on Mother's Day or leading up to Mother's Day. But the funny thing is most mothers, I believe, would say something like what Peter said in the first reading. When they bow to him, his response was, "No, please get up."

And most mothers would say, "Please, get up. We're just human beings." Because in truth, God shows no partiality. And I think part of that is because most of us who do any mothering are deeply aware of our insufficiencies. We're deeply aware of how imperfect we are at mothering or loving.

But I think a part of this is really fascinating if we think about St. Peter, it's unlikely that Saint Peter could have said those words. The first day that he was called into Jesus's friendship and ministry. I think it took years. Years of spending time with Jesus. Years of spending time with the Holy Spirit after Jesus's resurrection.

Only after those years and that transformation in love. Could he say those words, "we're just human beings. Get up. God shows no partiality."

What I've learned from mothers and mothering is that mothering is about love in abundance. It's about this God who says, "I have loved you and so you go out and love others." Jesus tells us, "As the Father has loved me, so I love you." So it's that same direction of love poured in and love poured out.

I learned this from my own mom, uh, along with my dad, she raised three girls. Uh, I think we're decently human beings, but the jury is maybe still out on that as well. But I also watched her mother hundreds of teens and young adults. You see, she was a coach. She was a volleyball coach. It all started when the local parish, uh, put a thing in the bulletin, asking for anybody to start any sort of girl's sport.

And so she answered and said, okay, I can start a volleyball team. And that became a volleyball club and that became grade school, high school. Uh, then onto college. She coached boys and girls, young men and young women. And there were a lot of skills on the court that she taught. And she taught us to teach.

But what I really watched her pour out where are the other skills. She mothered hundreds of people. And sometimes, those kids, those teens, they got mothering from her that they couldn't get from their parents for one reason or another.

I watched my mother pour out what was poured into her.

You know, I don't know if this is your experience, but I've also learned to mother from my own kids. And I tell people this when, when somebody is about to welcome a child into their home or, um, or have a baby, they'll say, you know, you have any advice. And I usually say, I think they're going to teach you.

Your kids teach you. Um, And one of the t