Mary, Mother of Sorrows and My Mother

Today we Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother solemnly celebrate the feast of Mary, Mother of Sorrows. As He was dying, Jesus entrusted Mary to us as our mother.  It was His mother, I believe, who walked more closely with Jesus than any other. It was through her that He, as a human being, learned to put all of His trust in God. It was Mary, His Mother, who taught Him to say "yes" to the Father, no matter how distant God seemed, no matter what the Father asked of Him. She it was who brought Him into existence risking her life to do so. It was Mary, with Joseph, who protected Him as a toddler from Herod's murderous rampage to kill Him by slaughtering all males under two years of age. It was Mary who called Him forth at the wedding feast of Cana to show compassion to the wedding party and to not hide who He was and why He, the Son of God,  was sent to take on human nation, namely, to show us how to be loving, compassionate and caring of one another.  It was Mary who met Him in the road to Calvary, did not flee from danger but found a way to be in the midst of Jesus' painful journey to the cross, It was Mary who stood beneath the cross to give her Son strength, to support Him in His agonizing death, to not abandon Him while others taunted Him, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself" (Lk 23: 37).  Save us and yourself and us as well" (Lk 23: 39).

Jesus gave His mother to us to be for us what she was for Him as we, too, pass through this life onto the next. Mary knows sorrow. She knows pain. She knows the devastating experience of losing a child (Jesus lost in the Temple), Jesus hunted by the Pharisees, whose jealous rage led them to seek his death, and Jesus arrested and condemned to death. She knows human sorrow. And it is she who is our mother here on earth as she was the mother of the greatest human being to ever walk on the earth!

Do I seek her out in my pain, my sorrow, my heartache? Do I realize that she is, in fact, my mother?