Mary: Mother of Sorrows and a Mother Who Understands Our Sorrows

Today, we Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, have been given the privilege of celebrating the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother on this Sunday. I would like to share with you brief reflections on the seven sorrows of Mary.

The First Sorrow: The Prophesy of Simeon--Simeon prophesies that Jesus will be the cause of the rise and fall of many in Israel and then tells Mary that her own heart will be pierced with sorrow.  Imagine being a young parent. You present your child for baptism and are told that this child is going to cause you a lot of pain and suffering. That is all that is said! Mary ponders these words in her heart and she knows the pain of parents whose children’s behaviors cause them intense sorrow.

The Second Sorrow:  The Flight into Egypt--Shortly after Jesus is born, Herod seeks to kill him. Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the child and flee into the night to escape Herod’s murderous rage against their son Jesus. Think of the many parents who fear for their children’s safety and flee their country and  become refugees in order to protect their children from harm’s way.  Mary’s know their pain!

The Third Sorrow: The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple--Mary knows the sorrow of parents who have lost their child to drugs, to the sex slave, to human trafficking and other violent movements in our world. She knows the pain of parents who have lost communication with their child/children, whose children have simply gone their own direction without telling them their whereabouts.

The Fourth Sorrow: Meeting Jesus on the road to Calvary, carrying the beam of wood upon which He will be crucified, so weak from the loss of blood in the scourging that He can hardly move forward and is beaten if He falls--Mary knows the pain of a parent seeing a child on his/her deathbed or a child watching his/her parent die or a friend die. Mary knows the pain of a parent seeing his/her child bullied and unable to stop the violence. Mary’s heart bleeds and grieves with anyone in such positions.

The Fifth Sorrow: Mary Standing beneath the cross watching her Son die--Mary supports Jesus in His most hideous of sufferings. She does not abandon Him in this hour of dire need.  Mary knows the pain of parents/children or friend, husbands/wives who, no matter what, stand by, stay with, and give support to a loved one, whose suffering one is unable to lessen or alleviate. She knows the pain of those who risk death or another person’s scorn by staying with another abandoned to death, condemned unjustly.

The Sixth Sorrow: Mary receives the dead body of her Son--Mary knows the pain of parents, husband/wives, children who are given the dead body of their loved one returned from war, found beaten to death on the side of the road or some ally in our city streets.

The Seventh Sorrow: Mary at the burial of her Son: Mary knows your pain when you have to bury a child, a parent, a friend, a husband/wife, especially when such a person was in the prime of his/her life and ministry; when that person seems to have died prematurely, unnecessarily, humanly speaking.

MARY KNOWS YOUR SORROW AND GRIEVES WITH YOU!  GO TO HER IN YOUR GRIEF! SHE IS YOUR MOTHER. SHE KNOWS HOW TO COMFORT YOU, SUPPORT YOU. SHE UNDERSTANDS!

Waiting for Peace

Today’s readings, Jeremiah 14: 17-22 and Matthew 13: 36-43, are awesome! Jeremiah cries out to the Lord, distraught over the destruction he sees in his country: people are being killed, left to rot in the fields. People are starving in the cities.  Wherever he looks he sees the effects of evil.  Sounds like Jeremiah is living in 2016: every day, on the news, we hear of individuals being gunned down,  stabbed, beaten (whether that be physical, verbal, or emotional).  Every day children are abandoned, neglected,  abused, sold into slavery, become victims of the sex industry or drug traffickers. Every day babies are killed in their mother’s womb. On and on and on we see evil, that is, we witness  people ensnared by Satan’s deceptive maneuvers, lured into becoming wealthy by any means or avoiding inconvenience or sacrifices that are part of life here on earth.

  

Like Jeremiah, we could ask God: “Have you cast Judah (us) off completely? Is Zion (insert the name of your city, country, State) loathsome to you? Why have you struck us a blow that can not [it seems] be healed? We wait for peace, to no avail; for a time of healing, but terror comes instead.  We recognize, O Lord, our wickedness,” or do we?

And God says to us, through Matthew 13:  28-30,   Do not pull out the weeds, those doing evil in the world,  because “when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow til the harvest; and at harvest time, I shall say to the reapers:  ‘First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.’”  In Matthew 13: 41-43, Jesus says to us that at the end of the ages:  “The Son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of falling and all who do evil, and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the upright will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.’ Anyone who has ears should listen!”

Are we listening? And, what am I doing to bring about healing: to decrease wickedness, to lessen violence (verbal, physical, emotional, spiritual) in my relationships, to bring about peace in the world, that is, in the family, in my religious community, in the parish, in the municipal or civic community in which I live?

Love the Unlovable

In today’s Gospel, Mt 5: 43-48, Jesus  says to us:  You  have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun to rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”

“Love your enemies.”   We might tell ourselves to love that which we despise, first in ourselves, and then in others.  Are we having trouble loving our enemies? Is it, I wonder, because we are rejecting ourselves? Perhaps, we need to stop the self-rejection.  Is there something in ourselves that we disdain?  If so,  do we need to, first,  become a friend to the distained parts of ourselves, sob over those parts, if we must; grieve that which we dislike about ourselves . Grieving brings healing and opens the compassionate side of ourselves.  The effect is the same as hugging a hurting child.  That child’s energy is restored, a confidence rebuilt, and he/she finds a way to make choices that rebuild his/her sense of well-being. 

We might want to listen to the Lord say to us: “Seek, insert your name, to love the unlovable in yourself and in others, in this day’s happenings! Seek to love that which appears repulsive to you and notice its transformation into that which is palatable. I did it on Calvary, insert your name,  and Easter followed! I rose to new life and took you with me.