Tuesday, September 15, 2020 Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (today’s lectionary)
Love you forever, love you for always
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister.
Above them, nailed to his cross, Jesus is dying. The women shield their eyes from the noonday sun. Men surround them sweating, laughing, hungry for lunch. No other women are left on the hill.
Mary followed her son out of Pilate’s court through the streets of Jerusalem. She saw plenty of onlookers there, women and men and even children, calling to each other, some weeping, some indifferent. Jesus carried a cross far too heavy and made of splintery wood, shouldered up onto his bare skin, cradled between his neck and arms. Blood dripped from thorns pushed too deep into his forehead and scalp, and his back was ripped to shreds.
At last now, the dying was nearly done, and Mary remembered the words of Simeon thirty years ago.
This child will be a sign spoken against.
He will cause the falling and rising of many in Israel,
And in his time the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.
And one thing more, sweet Mary, mother of God:
A spear will pierce your own soul too.
A mother does not simply separate from her child as he is born. The imprint of Jesus on Mary’s womb is there forever, for always. She carried him all her life.
As a body is one though it has many parts,
And all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
So also Christ.
We were all given to drink of one Spirit.
And the body is not a single part, but many.
No, Jesus has never been alone up on that cross.
Know that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his,
So enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
As the clouds gather above them, Mary’s heart beats with his. The wind picks up and blows hard across the hill, and soldiers murmur in fear. On and about the ninth hour: nones as it has forever since been called, Jesus looked once more at Mary and cried, “It is finished!” Then he died.
Even as the storm fell, the centurion insisted that Jesus be pierced with a spear. Mary felt the piercing in her side, as she had felt the thorns, as she had felt the whip, as she had felt the jeers and the tears of everyone around them. She carried the weight, she carried the cross of her son down the hill to his grave, into life everlasting. Her sorrowful mysteries were about to give way to the glorious, but she did not know. On her way down the hill, she wept and wept.
On the west edge of Libertyville, Illinois I learned to pray the Rosary in a beautiful grove just outside the Chapel at Marytown. Asian, Hispanic, African-American and White Catholics attend Mass at this Franciscan chapel every day. Those same worshippers make sure the 24 hour Perpetual Adoration list is full every day of every year. Does Mary listen?
Of course she does. She knows that our sorrowful mysteries, just like hers, will one day be changed to glory. Just wait and see.
(1 Corinthians 12, Psalm 100, John 19, Luke 2)
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