6th Sunday in Easter – 10 May 2026 (Mothers’ Day)

The tenderness of Jesus towards his friends strikes us from today’s gospel. As he prepares them for his departure, he says to them: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you.” In the midst of all their uncertainty, fear and loss, Jesus assures them that they are not abandoned. His love will remain with them, even when they cannot see him.

We know only too well that one of our great fears is the fear of being alone, of being forgotten, of being left without anyone to hold us when life becomes dark or confusing. Yet from the beginning of our lives, most of us first encountered the opposite of that fear in the love of our mother. A mother’s love teaches us what it means to belong to someone, to be held, protected, remembered and cherished even when we ourselves are difficult, frightened, or lost.

I have been long struck by the powerful scene in the 1995 film, Dead Man Walking, based on the true story of Sister Helen Prejean and her ministry to prisoners on death row in the United States. In one scene, Helen has returned home exhausted and emotionally burdened by her attempts to accompany a condemned prisoner through his final days before execution. During a quiet conversation, her mother recalls an incident from Helen’s childhood. Helen had been very ill with fever and delirium and, in her confusion, struck her mother and gave her a black eye. Her mother remembers what she did next. She says: “I held you tight, and the more you fought the tighter I held you. I would not let you go.” It is a beautiful description of maternal love. When her child was confused, frightened and even violent, the mother did not withdraw. She held on even more firmly.

Perhaps, indeed, that is one of the deepest images of God we can ever receive. God does not love us only when we are calm, grateful and holy. God remains with us precisely when we are struggling, resisting, angry, confused, ashamed or afraid. Indeed, sometimes it is when we fight most against God that God holds us most tightly.

Many of us carry hidden battles: grief, anxiety, loneliness, guilt, disappointment, exhaustion. Often, we imagine that these experiences separate us from God. But the Gospel tells us the opposite. Jesus comes closest precisely there. The risen Lord does not abandon us in our darkness. He enters it. And this is why Jesus speaks also of “the Spirit of truth.” Truth here is not merely correct ideas or doctrines. It is the deep truth that we are loved beyond measure and never abandoned. The Spirit reveals to us the enduring presence of God even when circumstances seem to deny it.

Mothers so often become the first witnesses of that truth. Through countless unseen acts of sacrifice, patience, forgiveness and endurance, they reveal something of God’s own heart. Not perfectly, because no human love is perfect, but truly, nonetheless. Today, then, we give thanks for mothers: for those still with us, for those who have died, for grandmothers, stepmothers, foster mothers, adoptive mothers, and all women whose love has nurtured life in others.

We also remember today that Mother’s Day can carry sorrow as well as gratitude: sorrow for those who mourn their mothers, for mothers grieving children, for strained relationships, for those who longed to be mothers and could not be, and for those whose experience of motherhood has been marked by pain. Into all those experiences Jesus speaks the same words: “I will not leave you orphans.”

And so, in every Eucharist we gather not as abandoned people, but as children held by the love of God. Sometimes gently. Sometimes firmly. But always faithfully. And perhaps today we might simply allow ourselves to believe this: that no matter how much we struggle, how much we resist, or how lost we feel, God says to each one of us: “I will not let you go.”