586. September 15, Our Lady of Sorrows

Meditations no. 514 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Contemplating Mary beside Christ’s Cross.

Holy Mother the Church used to celebrate the feast of the Sorrows of our Lady twice a year. There was no fixed date for the first occasion, since it depended on when Easter fell. It was celebrated on the Friday of Passion Week, and was called Friday of Sorrows. With the liturgical reform, this feast has disappeared. But the one we commemorate today continues, on the day after the Exaltation of the holy Cross.

Our Mother the Church wants the faithful, who are children of holy Mary, to accompany the Blessed Virgin in her sorrow. She wants us to try to comprehend the suffering her soul underwent even during Christ’s life, and especially during his passion and death.

Our founder’s words open the theme for our prayer today. We want to accompany Jesus and Mary very closely as the Sacrifice of Calvary is consummated. We have often considered this scene, thankful to our Lord for having given us his Mother as our Mother. Today we focus especially on the sufferings our Lady endured out of love for us. At the cross her station keeping / stood the mournful Mother weeping, / close to Jesus to the last. Through her heart, his sorrow sharing, / all his bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword had passed. Oh, how sad and sore distressed / was that Mother highly blessed / of the sole begotten One! Christ above in torment hangs, / she beneath beholds the pangs / of her dying, glorious Son.

Possibly there are few places in the world where these things are still considered. Therefore, with our eyes closed and our soul open to contemplation and to the light of historical and divine facts, we renew an act of contrition, of compunction. We ask our Lord’s forgiveness for those lashes and thorns, for that Cross, for those nails that bind him to the wood, for that lance which is going to pass through his side, for the gall and vinegar they offer him as consolation, for the mockery, the abuse, the jeers.

The chief priests, scribes and elders taunt hint: If you are the Son of God, come down from the Cross (Mt 27: 40). But he doesn’t want to come down. He has gone up to the Cross with the spirit of an Eternal Priest, to be immolated for our sins, as a Priest and Victim. My children, let us be filled with repentance. Without Christ’s sufferings for our sins, it is useless to consider the sorrows of our Lady, of his Mother and our Mother.

My children, let us never leave Jesus alone. Let us have a great devotion to Christ crucified and a tender, filial devotion to holy Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, who stands upright, firm, alone or practically alone, her soul pierced with grief, beside the Cross.

Meditating on the suffering of Jesus and Mary gives us strength not to dialogue with temptation.

Mary’s heart is pierced by a sword of sorrow, as Simeon had foretold many years before. Our Lady’s suffering deeply moves our soul: Is there one who would not weep, / whelmed in miseries so deep, / Christ’s dear Mother to behold? / Can the human heart refrain / from partaking in her pain, / in that Mother’s pain untold?

Seeing the immense suffering of Jesus and his Mother, we glimpse the tremendous malice of sin. Our Lady never committed a single sin. God preserved her even from original sin, with which we are all born. Filled with grace throughout her life, she nevertheless experienced the weight of mankind’s sins, co-redeeming in close union with her Son. Despite the passage of time, each one of us is a protagonist in the suffering that unites the Son and his Mother, since Christ also suffered for our sins. Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, she beheld her tender Child, all with bloody scourges rent. For the sins of his own nation / saw him hang in desolation / till his spirit forth he sent. Our Lady’s sorrow should move us to a deep contrition. My children, on your own part, say something to our Lord, and also to his Mother. Tell her what we would tell our own mother if we saw her offended and mistreated in this way, the object of malicious stares. She endures all of this out of love for her Son. She lets herself be crucified in desire, accepting all the shame and humiliation.

I insist that accompanying holy Mary like this can serve as a means to keep presence of God. Especially since we can be sure that today there are few on earth who accompany her: they attack her, they offend her as they offended her Son, they rend the garments of her great privileges, they insult her in every way.

But you and I, no! Mother of God and our Mother! We believe everything that the Church has taught over the centuries. And we are saddened to see that some have abandoned you, through their lack of piety. I could have put it more strongly: through their lack of respect, even their scorn for your love, which is such an important and wonderful part of the Christian’s interior life.

We ask our Lady of Sorrows to win for us a deep love, because only a person who loves can begin to comprehend the extent of the sufferings of the One who gave himself up for us. O sweet Mother! font of love, / touch my spirit from above, / make my heart with yours accord. Make me feel as you have felt; make my soul to glow and melt / with the love of Christ, my Lord… Let me mingle tears with you, / mourning him who mourned for me, / all the days that I may live. By the cross with you to stay, / there with you to weep and pray, / is all I ask of you to give.

We should frequently meditate on our Lord’s passion and death.

Our Father taught us to bring our Lord’s life to our personal prayer, so that we may keep it continually in our hearts, especially his passion and death. When you do the Stations of the Cross, which is a wonderful devotion, pay careful attention to those terrible moments, when they lead Jesus Christ like a lamb to the slaughter. Imagine if it were one of us. Almost no one in my blood family is left here on earth. But you are young and have many people in your own families: how they would suffer to see you dishonoured! For, above all, they dishonoured Jesus: they said that he wasn’t the Son of God, that he was a liar, a deceiver; they jeered at him because he was the son of a carpenter. They forgot that he was a descendent of David. Then, after this dishonour, came the physical suffering: they scourge him, they mock him, they clamor for his death, which is granted to them.

By meditating frequently on our Lord’s Passion, we will be closely united to the mystery of the Cross. We will keep our Mother company, and our apostolic efforts will be supernaturally effective. St Thomas Aquinas said that his book was the Crucifix. His book! In those days, a book was of immense value, it was a treasure, because there were so few of them. Now, in contrast, there are many books that destroy the faith and human dignity.

May our book be Jesus crucified. May our book be Mary at the foot of the Cross: strong, upright, but a woman and a Mother, her Heart engulfed by sorrow, in need of an affectionate word and consolation. Above all she needs love for her Son, who is nailed to the wood through such inhuman cruelty!

We are co-redeemers, called to co-redeem with Christ through our work. Therefore in the midst of our ordinary tasks we can raise our heart to God through Mary’s intercession: Virgin of all virgins blest! / Listen to my fond request: / let me share your grief divine. Let me to my latest breath, / in my body bear the death / of that dying Son of yours. Wounded with his every wound, / steep my soul till it has swooned / in his very blood away. Thus we will feel urged to offer God each of our tasks in union with Christ, to work intensely, with an upright intention, with a spirit of sacrifice, finishing each job down to the last details, with the assurance that by our work we are collaborating in the redemption of all mankind.

Let us once again contemplate the scene on Golgotha. The fortitude of our sorrow-filled Mother gives rise in us to the firm resolution never to leave her alone, never to abandon Jesus. Let us resolve to always stay at holy Mary’s side, at the foot of the Cross. We want to console her, and to read from that book that is Christ crucified, in order to be filled with peace, joy and desires of holiness.