Today we celebrate the beautiful memorial of Our Lady, our Mother of Sorrows. And we are given a couple of options in regard to the Gospel today. One is from the Gospel of John, which describes the scene at Calvary when our Blessed Mother was standing beneath the Cross of Jesus, looking upon him, loving him, praying for him, sorrowing with him.
Then we also have the other option of the Gospel of Luke, where she meets the Prophet Simeon at the Temple, when she and Joseph went and presented Jesus, as was prescribed by the law of Moses, where Simeon tells her that a sword will pierce her own heart as well.
My brothers and sisters, when we speak of this beautiful memorial, and when we remember everything our Blessed Mother endured, we cannot forget the traditional seven sorrows that we associate with her heart on this day. The seven sorrows being: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the loss of Jesus in the Temple, meeting Jesus on the way to Calvary, standing beneath the Cross, receiving the body of Jesus, and finally, the burial of Jesus.
My brothers and sisters, in the prophecy of Simeon, the sorrow she knows is coming because of his prophecy will continue to linger in her heart. Eventually they're forced to flee into Egypt. And so she has to experience the sorrow of fear, of displacement, of uncertainty, of the perils of a long journey. Not only for herself but for her Son and for Joseph, who so tenderly loved them both.
And then finally, when they return from Egypt and settle in, and at the tender age of twelve, they lose Jesus in the Temple, finding him there preaching to the doctors of the Church, to the learned, to the wise, and confounding them with his divine wisdom. And in those days in which he was absent, in which they couldn't find him, the sorrow of searching for someone she loved would soon once again grip her heart.
In the fourth sorrow we speak of the unspeakable: a battered, scourged, bruised Jesus carrying the Cross through the streets of Jerusalem with a crown of thorns, bloodied and beaten, she encounters him as she accompanied him all the way to Calvary. She manages to break through the guard. She manages to stand firm in the presence of the vicious Romans who were leading him through the streets.
And he catches a glimpse of her. And just the mere sight of this mother beyond any other mother strengthens his heart and gives him the impetus, the energy, the added love in his heart to continue and fulfil his mission, so that once upon the Cross, before his final breath, he would say to the heavenly Father, “It is accomplished.”
And he could say that because of all the love, the nurturing, the prayer, the assistance that this, our sorrowful Mother, had given him throughout his entire life, but now in a very special way, in the most crucial moment, when everybody else for the most part left him. She would stand even closer to him, to give him that moral support in his human nature.
And so there beneath the Cross, she stood. And perhaps this is the most important word that we see in the Gospel that is given to us for this particular memorial: “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19:25).
But that word, standing. Would not such a sight make us crumble, make us fall to our knees, make us faint in horror? And yet there she was standing. What a strong, powerful, incredible Mother we have, so full of faith, so focused on what the Lord had revealed, because she had pondered all of this throughout her entire life.
She understood well the prophecies which everybody else confused about the Messiah, that it was necessary that he suffer, and she believed that he would rise again after three days. But that belief did not lessen or dull the pain that she felt standing beneath the Cross, but rather it gave her hope.
It gave her hope that beyond the darkness that she was experiencing, beyond the sun that would hide its face at his death, beyond the earth that would shake in horror of the crime committed against God, there would be an Easter Sunday morning where the sun would rise beautifully and announce that the King of kings lives forever and is by our side always to assist us, to be with us in our own sorrows.
Then the sixth sorrow, receiving the body of Jesus from the Cross, she experiences the sorrow of death and bereavement. That pain of somebody who leaves us and who takes a part of our hearts with them, because we will always love them.
And then to bury them, the seventh dolore of our Blessed Mother, the seventh sorrow, the burial of Jesus, the sorrow of letting go and walking away from the tomb. This is something perhaps that most of us have experienced already after having lost a loved one.
But these sorrows of Mary only point to the glory of the Resurrection. For as Saint Paul says, “If we have suffered with Christ, we shall also reign with him.”
Through the intercession of our most sorrowful Mother, may Almighty God bless you always, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Go in peace.
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