Homilies on Our Lady of Sorrows

Today as we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, it comes the day after the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. Even though we know that Our Lord has triumphed victoriously through His Cross and Resurrection, nonetheless, the pain and the anguish in which Our Lady would have been suffering as she stood at the foot of the Cross is certainly recognized and celebrated. It is celebrated for a very particular reason, first of all, because she became our mother at the foot of the Cross. It was there, as Simeon had foretold, that a sword of sorrow would pierce her heart. And in piercing her heart, her heart was opened so that she would be able to give birth to all the children she had conceived at the moment of the Annunciation.

Wednesday September 15, 2004

Our Lady of Sorrows

Reading (Hebrews 5:7-9)

Gospel (St. Luke 2:33-35)

Recall that at the Annunciation she conceived the fullness of Christ. As the Fathers tell us, she had to conceive first in her heart before she could conceive in her womb. And by the fullness of Christ conceived in her heart, we mean the Mystical Christ of which we are each a part. As a mother will do when she conceives, the baby remains within until there is the opening for the baby to be born. Well, the same had to happen for us. We were conceived in her heart on the day of the Annunciation, but we were not born from her heart until the day her heart was opened, the day she stood at the foot of the Cross, the day upon which Our Lord looked down and said to her, Woman, behold your son. It was in the suffering at the foot of the Cross that we have been given life, not natural life but supernatural life. And that supernatural life comes from the Cross of Christ through His blood which was shed for us. As any mother will have to do in giving birth, Our Lady had to suffer for the birth of her children. There was no suffering in the birth of Christ because it was a miraculous birth without the normal opening of the womb. So the only time Our Lady suffered in giving birth, as we see in the Book of Revelation, is when she gave birth to us, when there was the opening so that we could be born.

But it is even more than that for us because Our Lady suffering at the foot of the Cross shares in the suffering of Christ. It is there at the foot of the Cross in her agony that she unites herself perfectly with the work of her Son, not only to give new life to us who would be born from her but also to share in the work and the suffering of Christ. And so it is in this giving of birth that we see just how intimately she shared in that work of Christ because it was on the Cross that He obtained for us the grace that we could have life, but we have life through Our Lady. So the two cannot be separated. In fact, it is through the blood which was shed upon the Cross that life is given to us. The water and the blood which came forth from Our Lord’s heart when it was pierced becomes the means for us to have life through Baptism and the Eucharist. But when Our Lady’s heart was pierced, it was then that that life was given to us. And so it was won for us in the piercing of the heart of Christ, and we were born in that new life through the piercing of the heart of Our Blessed Lady.

As she has shared then in the suffering of Christ, she, more than any, has fulfilled what Saint Paul told us we are all called to do and what he himself does as he tells the Colossians that he makes up in his body for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of the Body of Christ, the Church. That is exactly what Our Lady was doing, uniting herself perfectly with the suffering of Christ so that we would have life, and giving to each one of us the example that we are to do the same. For each one of us, being the Bride of Christ, we also are to share in that maternity of the Church, to bring forth new children for God. Certainly, this is something which is far more natural to a woman to a man, that spiritual maternity which is shared in by all of those who are called to a consecrated life of virginity and of chastity; those women are to share in a special way in that spiritual maternity. But each and every one of us, because we are a member of Christ, are to share in His suffering to bring about new life, and as we heard in the first reading, to be perfected through suffering. There is no other way. Our Lord has commanded us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and there is only one way to become perfect. That is through suffering, through our sharing in the Cross, and through our sharing in the new life which was won for us by Christ and applied to us in our spiritual rebirth through the piercing of the heart of our Blessed Mother.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Thursday September 15, 2005

Our Lady of Sorrows

Reading (Hebrews 5:7-9)

Gospel (St. Luke 2:33-35)

In the first reading today from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews, there is a line that is quite interesting. It says: Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered; and when He became perfect, He became the source of eternal life to all who serve Him. If we think about what that says, first of all, how can we say that Jesus through suffering learned obedience? He is God; He is perfectly obedient. Then it talks about “when He was made perfect.” He is God; He is perfect. And He cannot be made any more perfect than He already was because God is perfect. Period. If He became more perfect, it would imply that He was not God because God cannot change. So how could He become perfect?

Well, if we think about exactly what this means and put it into the context of today’s feast, it makes perfect sense because the Mystical Body of Christ and the fullness of the person of Christ, which is both the historical, physical person of Christ and the Mystical Christ (of which we are members), are one. We have one and the same Father; we have one and the same Mother; we are all members of Jesus Christ. He is God; He is perfect. We are not. And so the point is that the only way we will become perfect is through suffering. The only way we will learn obedience is through suffering.

Now this gets right at the heart of the Protestant heresy that we are dealing with today, and that is that God does not want us to suffer. “Jesus did it all, therefore, you don’t need to.” It is that gospel of health and wealth that I rip on rather frequently because it is nowhere in Scripture. It is nowhere in Christianity until just fairly recently when all of a sudden these people decided about 150 years ago that they were not going to have to suffer. No Christian believed that for over 1800 years, but now it has become one of the central doctrines for many who are not Catholic.

We see that it [suffering] is something that is required. Think about the feast we celebrate today. Our Lord loved His mother more than anyone. She loved Him more than all of us and all the saints and angels combined, so she loved Him more than anyone. If there were anyone whom Our Lord would spare from suffering, it would be His mother. All of us can look at it and say, “Well, we deserve it after all, look at our sins.” She never sinned, and so there was nothing in her that needed to be perfected. Yet there she was united with Him in His suffering right from the beginning of His life, as we heard in the Gospel reading the prophecy that a sword will pierce your heart. The Greek word there for “sword” is a sword of sorrow, not a physical sword but a spiritual one. A sword of sorrow would pierce her Immaculate Heart. Now if the Lord was going to do all the suffering for us so that we did not need to, the one person He would have spared is His mother above all of us. Yet she, being the preeminent member of the Mystical Body of Christ and being our mother, is the one who shows us how to live the fullness of the Christian life.

The fullness of that Christian life implies being at the foot of the Cross, being united with Jesus in His suffering, offering sacrifices to God the Father. And because the Mystical Christ is crying out to God, just as Saint Paul says of Our Lord that He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One who was able to save Him from death and He was heard because of His reverence, so too in the Mystical Christ. The sacrifice that we offer everyday at Mass is a perfect sacrifice. Therefore, the prayers are heard and answered by God because the primary priest is Jesus, the victim is Jesus. The prayer is the perfect prayer of Our Lord, so we know that the prayers are heard. The prayers are not to spare us from suffering and death, but rather the prayers are to free us from suffering and death. That does not mean to keep us from having to suffer and die, but rather it means to bring us through the suffering and death to the glory of the Resurrection. Jesus was freed from death, but He had to enter into it before He could rise and be freed from it.

So it will be with us. We will not be spared the suffering, as we all know from our own lives. We will not be spared the share in the death of Christ, but we will be freed from it if we unite ourselves with it. In fact, the saints tell us that when we have such a profound love for Our Lord that the suffering we endure becomes the glory. It becomes the greatest joy in our lives. The very thing that most of us spend so much time and effort trying to avoid is what the saints would run to embrace. So we really see how little we love Our Lord as we do everything in our power to make sure we do not have to suffer.

If we want to truly love Our Lord and if we want to follow the example of our Blessed Lady, we have to remember that Jesus will do with us exactly what He did with His blessed mother. Before the public ministry began, He asked her permission. He would not begin the work for which He came into this world until His mother said “yes.” And He will not do all kinds of work in our souls until we say “yes.” He will not force us to follow Him to the Cross; that has to be our choice. So if we want to be perfect, if we want to grow in holiness, if we want to learn obedience, there is ultimately only one way: It is to be united with Our Lord and to follow the example of our Blessed Lady. Again, look in the Gospels and every single time you hear Our Lady mentioned she is where Jesus is. Therefore, that is the example we have to follow. She was right where He was, right up to the Cross; right up to the Resurrection, there she was. If we want to share in His glory then we need to follow Him. We need to walk with Him through the struggles of this life of Calvary to the Cross to be united with Him in His crucifixion so that we will be right there at the moment of the Resurrection, and with Him and with our Blessed Lady we will be able to share not only the glory of the Cross but the ultimate glory of the Resurrection.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.