Daily Reading for May 10 • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

God chose to be our mother in all things
and so made the foundation of this work,
most humbly and most pure, in the virgin’s womb.

God the perfect wisdom of all,
was arrayed in this humble place.
Christ came in our poor flesh
to share a mother’s care.

Our mothers bore us for pain and for death;
our true mother, Jesus, bears us for joy and endless life.
Christ carried us within him in love and travail,
until the full time of his passion.

And when all was completed
and he had carried us so for joy,
still all this could not satisfy
the power of his wonderful love.

From a canticle based on Julian of Norwich, in the Community of St. Francis Office Book; quoted in Mary’s Hours: Daily Prayer with the Mother of God by Penelope Duckworth. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com