5th Sunday of Easter-Mother's Day

Mother’s Day

On a Mother’s Day we are thankful to God for our mothers and we pray for them. We also remember that we we have a Heavenly Mother – in Lemont we call her Marija Pomagaj. Generations of Slovenians prayed to her here in Lemont and in the national shrine in Slovenia. There are also other pilgrimage places in Slovenia and in the world. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Lourdes. Fatima.

Yesterday there was a centennial since the apparitions of Mary to brother and sister Frances and Jacinta and their cousin Lucia in Fatima, Portugal.

Frances and Jacinta – were yesterday proclaimed to be saints. They were simple shepherds. Francisco de Jesus Marto (12 June, 1908 – 4 April, 1919), his sister Jacinta de Jesus Marto (11 March, 1910 – 20 February, 1920),

‘Will you offer yourselves to God?’ was the question to the children by the Our Lady in Fatima. And they did offer themselves. Yesterday two of them were canonized as saints. They were eleven and ten years old when they died. Anybody here is 10 or eleven?

We can ask ourselves: How can those children be proclaimed to be saints? There was a special sign from God about that. Article:

Lucas Batista Maeda de Mourao, a ten-year-old Brazilian boy who was miraculously cured through the intercession of Francisco and Jacinta, was here for the canonization. Four years ago, he fell from the window of his grandfather’s home and suffered such serious brain damage. As his distraught father picked him up off the sidewalk to take him to the hospital, he invoked the intercession of Our Lady, Francisco, and Jacinta. That same night he and a local community of Carmelite nuns prayed to the two young seers to intercede with God to cure the boy. Some days later, to the amazement of the doctors, the young boy got up and walked home completely cured. Last February, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints concluded unanimously that his cure could not be scientifically explained. Francis recognized his cure as the miracle that opened the door to their canonization. The pope embraced and kissed Lucas tenderly when he brought up the offertory gifts.

They had love for ‘Hidden Jesus!’ in the tabernacle. Mary asked them also to pray for the sinners and for the world peace. It was the time of the first world war.

Generations of Mothers entrusted their children and grandchildren to our heavenly Mother.

‘Will you offer yourself to God,’ Mother Mary is asking each one of us. Mary accepted God’s plan for her life and she believed in Him in all circumstances. ‘Thy will be done.’

We all have our own small plans and our goals, ambitions, dreams. Mother Mary is asking us: Would you consider accepting God’s plan for your life as I did? Would you consider accepting your heavenly Father’s plan as my Son Jesus did accept it?

Today we are thankful to our mothers we are also thankful for our heavenly Mother. May her intersession help us to follow her Son who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.