Father, as your Son was raised on the cross, his mother Mary stood by him, sharing his sufferings. May your Church be united with Christ in his suffering and death and so come to share in his rising to new life, where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Today’s feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary follows yesterday’s feast of the Triumph of the Cross. As the liturgical year progresses we see some things change in the liturgical atmosphere as we prepare, believe it or not, for the end of the liturgical year: our focus on the Paschal Mystery of the Lord (i.e., the life, death, resurrection & ascension of the Lord) becomes more present to us.
Liturgically the Church dedicates a day to the spiritual martyrdom of Mary, Jesus’ own mother. The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows has not only a spiritual depth but a real human one: it strikes at the core of our heart. What human being goes through life without some sort of pain? Like all mothers, Mary was wounded and pained at various times in her life by the absence of her son and the pain and death he had to suffer. No mother delights in her child’s misery, no mother sits by while her child’s humanity is in jeopardy. Consider what the mothers of soldiers go through waiting for her son or daughter to return from war. Imagine the terrible, heart wrenching pain that many mothers felt when they were told their child was killed in Iraq. I know of the pain my own paternal grandmother faced when her son was killed in a car accident more than 40 years ago; a pain that never truly healed nor spoken of…
The feast we observe today reminds us of the humanity of not only Mary, but of Jesus. For as we know, Mary always points to her son: the cross brought incredible suffering for Jesus while it saved all of humanity by trampling down sin and death; Careful observing the suffering as Mary did requires our attention, too, because Christ saved us in and through our humanity. This point is driven home countless times a day as I walk past a replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta (see the pic above); I am confronted with the sorrowing Mother Mary holding the dead body of her son in her arms, the very arms which cuddled him as an infant.
The Cistercian monks and Servite friars have given the Church an apt liturgical feast to indicate the depth of humanity Mary had in standing by her son, an experience foretold by Simeon. The feast has also be called Our Lady of Compassion, yet another intersection of theology and human reality.
Here are the seven sorrows of Mary:
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Stabat Mater dolorosa
iuxta crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
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The grieving Mother stood
beside the cross weeping
where her Son was hanging.
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Cuius animam gementem
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.
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Through her weeping soul,
compassionate and grieving,
a sword passed.
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O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta
mater Unigeniti!
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O how sad and afflicted
was that blessed
Mother of the Only-begotten!
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Quae maerebat et dolebat
pia mater cum videbat
nati poenas incliti.
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Who mourned and grieved,
the pious Mother, with seeing
the torment of her glorious Son.
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Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?
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Who is the man who would not weep
if seeing the Mother of Christ
in such agony?
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Quis non posset contristari,
piam matrem contemplari
dolentum cum Filio?
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Who would not be have compassion
on beholding the devout mother
suffering with her Son?
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Pro peccatis suae gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis
et flagellis subditum.
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For the sins of His people
she saw Jesus in torment
and subjected to the scourge.
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Vidit suum dulcem Natum
morientem, desolatum,
cum emisit spiritum.
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She saw her sweet Son
dying, forsaken,
while He gave up His spirit.
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Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
da per matrem me venire
ad palmam victoriae. Amen.
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Christ, when it is henceforth in need to pass away,
grant that through your Mother I may come
to the palm of victory. Amen.
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Thinking about the life-saving cross of Jesus, I am
recalling what Saint Ignatius of Loyola taught in his Spiritual Exercises about God’s unconditional love for humanity: no talk of the mercy and love is reasonable without kneeling before the cross. This was evident to me as I walked into the chapel this morning for Lauds and forced to navigate in the
middle of the aisle a cross with relic of the True Cross before it. I knelt for a moment of prayer and kissed the relic. It is striking to do this pious gesture because it brings home to the heart, the Christian reality that the cross is so very central to our life of faith; it is the altar on which we are saved; and it is the cross that is the key which unlocks the door to the Father’s house; it is the love that kills and transcends all sin.
Loyola offers a meditation
Imagine Christ our Lord suspended on the cross before you, and converse with him in a colloquy: How is it that he, although he is the Creator, has come to make himself a human being? How is it that he has passed from eternal life to death here in time, and to die in this way for my sins?
In a similar way, reflect on yourself and ask: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ What ought I to do for Christ?
In this way, too, gazing on him in so pitiful a state as he hangs on the cross, speak out whatever comes to your mind.
A Colloquy is made, properly speaking, in the way one friend speaks to another, or a servant to one in authority – now begging for a favor, now accusing oneself of some misdeed, now telling one’s concerns and asking counsel about them. Close with an Our Father.
(Spiritual Exercises 53 and 54)
In one respect the cross does have a terrible aspect
that we ought not to remove. To see that the purest of men, who was more than a
man, was executed in such a grisly way can make us frightened of ourselves. But
we also need to be frightened of ourselves and out of our self-complacency.
God the Father has exalted
Jesus Christ, the Lord of all,
Who has emptied self of glory,
Took our human nature’s thrall;
In obedience, He was humbled
Taking even cross and death;
Now creation shouts in wonder
“Christ is Lord” with ev’ry breath!
As the Cross is boldly
lifted
And the faithful now embrace
What was once a thing so shameful,
Now the hope of all our race,
Let us, marked with Cross, and
baptized,
Shout this news throughout the earth:
Through the Cross, our God has conquered!
Through it, come to His new birth!
87.87. D, no tune
suggested
James Michael Thompson, (c) 2009, World Library Publications
This afternoon the first Mass celebrated by priests associated with the Saint Gregory Society was offered at Saint Stanislaus Church, New Haven, CT. Having attended Mass at the Church since the mid-1970s I am elated that this has transpired, as I mentioned earlier on this blog. The beauty of the architecture coupled with the beauty of the sacred Liturgy is a wonderful convergence.
O blest teacher, light of holy Church, blessed John Chrysostom, thou lover of God’s law, plead with the Son of God for us.
You have been blessed, O Virgin Mary, above all other women on earth by the Lord, the Most High God, for God has so exalted your name that human lips will never cease to praise you.