My Sorrow is Your Sorrow

Today, following the crucifixion and death of Jesus, we contemplate Mary's sorrows.  Imagine when Mary hears that her son has been arrested. "Oh, no, the hour prophesied by Simeon," Mary must have thought.  Mary knew that the worst was yet to come. Roman soldiers were incredibly cruel to Jewish men and women arrested for any reason.  Mary knew that her son had come into conflict with Jewish authorities but this? She meets Jesus on the way to Calvary, carrying the cross upon which He would be crucified. Their eyes meet. His pain becomes Mary's pain. They are as intertwined on the road to Calvary as Jesus and she were one in the womb.

Imagine Mary seeing her son nailed to the cross and hearing His excruciating groans as the nails are pounded through His flesh. Then imagine the soldiers lifting the cross and dropping it in the hole prepared to receive it. There Jesus hangs, dying, bleeding, agonizingly trying to lift His body so He could breathe. Blood flowing from his pierced hands and feet and from His head stabbed with thorns.  She also sees the blood on His back and neck from the scourging.

Oh, is there any sorrow like to Mary's sorrow!

Yes, there is in the world of today.  Women and men, today,  see their child dying or hear that their child has been  rushed to surgery to save their lives from the wounds of their attacker. Think of parents who have just heard that their son or daughter has just been kidnapped and is in the hands of criminals, stuffed in the trunk of a car and sped off by human traffickers or are among a group of persons attacked by Isis or other terrorists. Or their child has joined terrorists groups, is part of a gang, is involved in drugs, has been arrested for alleged criminal activity. Think of parents who have just heard that their child has cancer, is terminally ill, must undergo surgery in efforts to save his/her life.

To whom can they go for solace? Mary certainly knows their pain. Mary, above all, is able to empathize with them, and give them solace.  She bears their pain as though it were her own. I pray that any man or woman facing the horrors that Mary faced will, in truth, find comfort going to Mary.