Mary, Mother of Sorrows

“…turn our sorrow into wholeness,” is Esther’s prayer in the first reading of today’s liturgy (Esther C: 12, 14-16, 23-25 as given in the New American Bible).  Mary, Mother of Sorrows, also journeyed in a world lacking wholeness, marred by incomprehensible events, and dominated by disunity, deception and corruption of morals.  She endured a flight into Egypt to save her son, the loss of her son in the Temple when she and Joseph must have feared the worst, the rumors that her son was “crazy”, her neighbors attempting to kill him by throwing him over a cliff, her son barred from entering certain areas of the country, her son’s clashes with the authorities of her day and knowing the dire consequences of such facts.  She must have, with Esther, cried out: “…help me, who am alone, and have no one but You, O Lord, my God,” (Esther C: 25). Mary, I believe, continues to weep when people are barred from certain experiences because of the color of their skin, their gender, their nationality, the country from which they come. She weeps, I believe, when parents lose their children under any circumstances, when young women surrender their virginity as a sign of maturity and freedom and wisdom, rationalizing that “everyone does it” and backtalk their parents with “you’re old fashioned,”  when children are aborted for whatever reason and so, so many other indications of a world that is broken. Mary, Mother of Sorrows, pray for us.