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Mother’s Day, May 14, 1939
Sermon Written and Delivered by
Father John B. Day
John B. Day, age 27, was the son of Mary Pearl Lawler Day and Bartholomew Day, and brother of Virginia Claire Day Fritscher, who was seven months pregnant with the family’s first grandchild, and his namesake, John Joseph Fritscher [Jack]. On the same Sunday, his brother James Day’s wife, Mildred [Horn], was five months pregnant with their son, James Day.
SS. PETER & PAUL’S CATHOLIC CHURCH
207 Vandalia Street
Collinsville, Illinois
This sermon is from The Collected Sermons of the Reverend John B. Day, edited by Jack Fritscher, to whom Mary Pearl Day gave the sermon manuscripts the day after Father John B. Day died on May 9, 1967.
Who ran to help me when I fell?
Or would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the part, to make it well?
My Mother.
Mother! The sweetest word in all the English language! Try to define it and you cannot find the right words to express yourself. So, my friends, after searching for many years to find the best definition for this beautiful word, I am at last convinced that the most complete expression of what motherhood is and what it means, is found in the verse of the poet I just quoted.
Let us take this verse apart and see how full of meaning is each line.
Who ran to help me when I fell? Does not this line express at once the solicitude that each and every mother holds in her heart for her child? What mother would not risk her life to save her son or daughter from even the slightest harm? Recall your own childhood days. Who alone was there at your every beck and call? No one, but your own dear mothers. At the sight of a stranger, or of a strange dog, at the sound of a clap of thunder, did not each and every one of you instinctively cling to your mother’s side. You knew, whatever happened, or whatever danger was near, you knew your mother would protect you.
The second line, of our verse—or some pretty story to tell? Ah, my friends, does it not bring back the fondest memories of your childhood days, yes, even of your whole life—to recall the beautiful stories you first heard on your throne as a little king—on your mother’s knee? Ah, the sweet stories of the Infant Jesus, of your Guardian Angel, or of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! How your dear mother convinced you of what was right and what was wrong, of what was virtue and what was sin. Perhaps she even thrilled you with tales of fairy land. Would that we all could have kept the innocence of our early childhood days.
Who would kiss the part to make it well? My Mother! Suppose you did stub your toe, or cut your finger, or bump your head. It felt as good as new as soon as mother healed it with her maternal kiss. Suppose someone hurt your feelings. Yes, mother would still be your friend. She would understand.
Yes, my dear friends, this is sentimental talk. But who can deny these words, or say they are not true? Yes, every child though he be 6 or 60 knows that his mother really and truly loved him, as bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh.
Is your mother still living? How do you treat her? Are you going to call on her today? Are you going to remember her by some little token of esteem? Don’t say you can’t afford any gift. Remember, it is not the gift of the lover, but the love of the giver. Suppose your dear mother has passed to her eternal reward. You can still remember her today in your prayers, and ask God to have mercy on her soul.
So far we have been talking about our earthly mothers, but it is impossible to speak of mothers and Mother’s Day without our thoughts going to Mary, the Mother of God, and the Mother of Mothers. [He had a lifelong special devotion to the Blessed Mother.]
Just as our earthly mothers take care of our physical needs, so does Mary the Mother of us all, Our Heavenly Mother, take care of our spiritual needs.
Going back to the words of the poet. Who could have told us a more beautiful story than the Divine Romance of the Redemption in which Mary played so prominent a part! And it is Mary who implants the sweet kiss of grace on our sinful brows as she welcomes us again into the charmed circle of repentant sinners.
Yes, Mary in spite of her unique honor as Mother of God, is always in close contact with us. She is just as solicitous for us today, as she was on the occasion of the wedding at Cana, when through her unfailing intercession, her Son worked His first miracle, changing the water into wine, merely to save a bride and groom from embarrassment at their wedding feast. For all that is noble in womanhood, Mary is responsible. She has ever been the pattern of all who wish to live purely, the ideal of Christian motherhood.
On this day commemorating the sublime privilege of motherhood, let the whole Catholic world cry out: “Oh, Mary, Mother of God, conceived without sin, pray for our mothers who have recourse to thee.” God bless you all, and keep you all. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
—The Reverend John B. Day
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This sermon was written by Father John B. Day, age 27, for Mother’s Day, May 14, 1939. Father Day (born July 17, 1912—died May 9, 1967) had been ordained a Roman Catholic priest on April 24, 1938. On July 12, 1938, he had performed the wedding mass of his younger sister Virginia Claire Day to George Fritscher. July 12, 1938, was also the 27th wedding anniversary of Father Day’s and Virginia Day’s parents, Mary Pearl Lawler (McDonough) Day and Bartholomew Day, who had been married July 12, 1911, in St. Louis, Missouri. Virginia Claire Day was also born on July 12, 1919.
At the time of writing this sermon, Father Day was speaking not only of his own mother, Mary Pearl, but also of his pregnant sister, Virginia Claire, who was a month away from becoming the first sister of Father Day to become a mother, with the birth of Father Day’s namesake, John Joseph Patrick Fritscher [Jack Fritscher] on June 20, 1939 who was Father Day’s first nephew—before he had nephews or nieces—in a generation in which only Father Day’s brothers and sisters would leave issue. Just as important emotionally, his closest brother Jimmie’s wife, Mildred, was also expecting their first child, James Day, born October 1939, who became Resident Judge of the Seventh Circuit.
This presentation of Father Day’s “Mother’s Day” sermon was edited on April 4, 1997, by Jack Fritscher from papers inherited from Father Day on his death at age 54, May 9, 1967.
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A Brief Biography of the
Reverend John B. Day
Born in Hamburg, Illinois, baptized in Michael, Illinois, and raised in Kampsville, Illinois, pioneer pastor Father John Bartholomew Day happened to be, in the lineage of priestly vocations, only the fourth boy born, and raised, in the county to be ordained to the priesthood in the Springfield Diocese.
For many years until his death in the rectory, Father Day was pastor of St. Cabrini’s Church, Springfield, where he built the school, the convent, and the new church building itself. Previously, he had been assistant pastor at St. Peter and Paul, Collinsville, Illinois, and pastor of St. Joseph’s parish outside Quincy, Illinois, where his mother and father first began to live with him as housekeeper and gardener.
From 1941-1945, he had served as a much-decorated Chaplain with the United States 5th Army. The Associated Press as well as TIME magazine, April 2, 1945, page 27, published a wire-photograph of Father Day saying mass on the front lines in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. A fictional account of his death appears in the collection of short stories written by Jack Fritscher, Sweet Embraceable You: Coffee-House Stories.
He is buried in Springfield, Illinois, next to his mother and father, near President Lincoln’s tomb.