Bruce Maivelett, Mary Cycon, Melissa McGrath, Eileen Kennedy (members of the Mother's Club), and Gerry McHugh (speaker for the breakfast from the class of 1972), myself

Mother-Son Communion Breakfast 26th of the Year September 28 2008
Almost as constant as the truism that we sons all have mothers is another: our mothers will defend us in public no matter what we do, well, almost no matter what.
Once when I was a young priest I said something in a sermon that a stranger in the congregation did not like. My mother was also present at the Mass. After Mass on the church steps she and I overheard the woman criticizing what I had said. Allow me to quote from the criticism we heard on those church steps even in the Irish brogue with which it was delivered: “that priest needs a swift kick in the arse.”
My mother sprang immediately to my defense proclaiming me as her son and undeserving of the criticism. There were other cases, too. I remember when I was fourteen and working for an unscrupulous employer. On that occasion she rightly allowed me to defend myself but coached me on how to do it.

Were my mother still living, she would be 100 years of age next Fourth of July. She was a Yankee Doodle Dandy, as the song goes, a daughter of Irish immigrants who found their way in Philadelphia. There are still occasions when I could use her as my public defender and I rely on her spiritual strength.

So I address all my young Prep brothers. Your mothers may take you to task in private; they may even agree in private conversations with others who criticize you but in public they will defend you. In fact I am fully convinced that, should a court of law demand their testimony, our mothers would not testify against us.