Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - What Mothers Know That the Rest of Us Forget

Last year, when we were on pilgrimage, uh, to, uh, Turkey and in Greece, in the footsteps of Saint, uh, St. Paul, uh, we had about nearly fifty, uh, parishioners, uh, from all over.

And, you know, when you got that group of people like that, something always goes wrong, right? Some little thing goes wrong.

And so, uh, the first day is somebody, uh, cut their foot on, uh, on, uh, something.

We were walking somewhere.

And, uh, and so I, I turned around and I asked, uh, said, "Rachel, do you have-- We need a large bandage." So Rachel opens up her bag, and out comes this huge bandage.

And I said, "Wow.

Okay, that's perfect." So we put it over the, the foot, and it's all going.

The next day, it was somebody turned over an ankle.

I said, "Rachel, we need a, a Ace bandage." And so opened up the bag.

There's an Ace bandage all rolled out, and she rolls it out.

And it kept on every day, there was some little something, uh, whether it was the, a, a allergy reaction to something or upset stomach or a, or a headache.

And every time we went to the bag, and Rachel opened up her bag, and there was the whatever we needed.

And eventually I said, "Rachel, what have you got in that bag? My Lord, is there everything in there? Is it..." And of course, um, you know, I, you know, I think back at this.

This is, you know, s- her answer was, was perfect.

She says, "This is what us mothers do.

We come prepared.

We always recognize." And of course, I, I, you know, I've heard that all my life with my own mother and my own sister and, uh, and, and they always do come prepared, right? And it's not that they're more organized than we are, although they probably are.

Um-

[laughs]

-it's that they become prepared for others.

They come prepared for that others will have needs.

And so their bags are, yeah, they are large, and they have-- And it's not just, I'm sure if we had asked anyone else in that group, all the women, we could have probably, uh, sewed up everybody's injuries for the entire trip.

Um, but that's w- but that's what, well, mothers and women have trained themselves.

They train themselves to think about others' needs.

Not their own, what they will need in this trip, but what others around them might need on this trip.