I hope you won’t think me overly sentimental when I say that there was something special – glorious, really -- about my mother, Rosemary Kelly Dodd.

At her funeral, in addition to the expected family and friends,

were many fellow cancer patients who’d been befriended by her in the waiting area for chemotherapy. "She put me at ease," said one balding woman. "She helped us through the toughest time of our lives," said a man and his wife, both looking so battered that you could scarcely tell who the actual patient was supposed to be.

"I just loved your mother," said any number of people I hadn’t seen before (or since).

The hospital chaplain was at the funeral too. She explained, understandably, that she couldn’t attend the funerals of all her patients. "But your mother," the chaplain confided, "was different. She was my pastor."

My mother brought me into this world and lived with me in it for 31 of my years. Of course she drove me crazy at least half the time (a tradition I proudly carry on with my own children.) She was very human. Her idiosyncrasies were legion. I, especially as a teenager, delighted in pointing them out. But I knew that she loved me no matter what. And it diminished that love not one bit to see how she exuded love to everyone else too.

To say that my mother "never met a stranger" was a gross

understatement. My father used to joke about "Rosemary’s stray’s" or the "lost sheep" she brought into our family flock, if only temporarily.

When I was growing up, I didn’t think much about what made her the blessing she was to me and our family, and to the neighbors and acquaintances and total strangers whose stories she carried in her heart. But on some level I must've known that it was of God.

Now you can accuse me of being outrageously sentimental

as I make the leap from reminiscing about my mother to today’s gospel, in which Jesus tells the disciples what they need to know as he concludes his earthly life.

It’s that part of John’s gospel known as the "Farewell Discourse" which we’ll be hearing from over the next few Sundays. It’s delivered at the Last Supper on the night before he died. Judas has just left to betray him, so there’s no way that Jesus could be accused of mushy sentimentality.

He's staring loss and betrayal in the face. His time is short. So he cuts to the chase, and it’s a new commandment called Love. Now of course love per se’ was hardly a new concept to the disciples. What was revolutionary was Jesus’ approach to love in the face of hate, his approach to life in the face of death.

Look at the way he describes his imminent arrest and crucifixion. "Now," he says, "the Son of Man has been glorified." What looks by all earthly appearances to be miserable defeat is actually the crowning moment in which God’s glory is revealed.

Then Jesus presents another radical idea. He tells them that they cannot come where he is going, but they can follow him.

They follow him by putting into practice a new commandment: loving each other; loving as he loves; loving as God who first loves us. Love is the single most distinguishing characteristic of followers of Jesus.

And this is a new kind of love that bears not an ounce of sentimental mush. It’s a love, literally, to die for -- as Jesus died for us. It’s a love that reveals more about the glory of God than our personal sentiments. In fact, it’s not our love at all but a reflection of the radiance that is the glory of God in Christ Jesus.

I’ve already told you about some of the comments made at my mother’s funeral. But the most startling one came from an older woman who charged across the funeral parlor pointing at me, saying, "Ah! That’s Rosemary! That’s what Rosemary looked like when we were young!"

Having long envied my petite and elegant mother, I was naturally flattered that at least something of her sheen had seemed to rub off on me. But as much as I admired my mother’s outward appearance I knew even back then that it was the love she carried inside -- and which spilled out everywhere she went -- that made her so captivating. I knew that I could never squeeze into her size 6 pumps, but I could strive to follow her footsteps in my own (klutzy) way.

But to do that would not mean following her at all, but joining her in following Christ Jesus, of whose radiance my mother's was but a glimmer and whose love she tried to make her own.

"Glory to God whose power working in us

can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine;

Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church,

and in Christ Jesus forever and ever." Amen.