”Hidden”…”Quiet”…& ”Humble”

Today the Universal Church commemorates Our Lady of Sorrows…..To lose a child is an incomprehensible suffering….And in the case of Our Lady, whose heart was so pure….The lose of her son must have been magnified a hundred fold…Yet she stood at the foot of the cross….And as it was prophesied by Simeon in St Luke’s Gospel when Jesus was presented at the temple by his parents - “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed”…In the mean time, Mary had to bear a great cross herself…..Just as Jesus’ heart was pierced by a spear…Her heart too was pierced……”So that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed”…….The magnitude of the sacrifice that both Jesus and Mary endured for us can not be comprehend - By anyone!…….Mary understood what we can NEVER understand…And therefore her suffering can not be fully understood by us….This is why we must cling to Our Lady….She gives us a window into her divine son that NO ONE can….Through her eyes and through her Immaculate Heart…She “bridges a gap”……And to this very day…She is still standing at the foot of the Cross in every corner of the world - Wherever innocents is slaughtered - And will be there until the end of time….Until her son returns….We must make a choice - Do we stand next to her as St John did?…..Or do we flee like the rest?

“Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary; without dying you won the martyr's crown beneath the Cross of the Lord”

St John as we all know was the only apostle who was not martyred…He was also entrusted by Christ himself to care for his mother….I am fully convinced this is why his Gospel is deeper and more profound then the other three Gospel accounts…John spent years with Mary after the death of Christ…..And living with such a person had to have effected him…….Our Lady is the perfect example of discipleship…No one followed Christ better and more perfectly the her…..But do we know what that really looks like if we were to see it?……..I am a morning person…..I get up everyday before my children and brew a pot of coffee and read Scripture….And as many know, before I got married I worked very closing with Mother Teresa’s sisters….Both in New York City and in India…..The spirituality of the Missionaries of Charity is very Marian…..Allow me to “try” to explain how I came to understand Marian Spirituality…..The Missionaries of Charity are humble, they live in poverty themselves, they work “in the background” and do the “messy work” of the Church…..When I would travel to India, Holy Mass would start at 6:00am…..I would get up at 4:45am….My alarm bell was the Muslim call to prayer….Kolkata has a large Muslim population and the sister’s convent is close to their neighborhood as was the room I rented……The sisters before Mass would pray in the chapel before people arrived for around an hour…Since I was already up, I would go early to pray in silence with them….There was something about that time…Seeing 200 nuns sitting on the floor of a chapel - You could hear a “pin drop” - Praying before the Blessed Sacrament…I mention that because…That is the best “window” I have ever seen into Marian Spirituality…Humble, quiet, “hidden” souls….Praying at the feet of Christ…This is who Mary was…And I saw this in Mother Teresa’s chapel in Kolkata before the 6:00am Mass began…I never really understood what a holy life looked like before that…..When we think of a holy life do we think of words like…”Hidden”…”Quiet”…”Humble”……..These traits are not very common in our world today……..As Catholics, we must learn from Mary…As St John did….The closer we get to Christ, the more he can use us…But what will that look like?….It may not look like what the “world thinks” a holy life is or should be…..Mary has so much to teach us…..For three hours she stood at the foot of the Cross……”Hidden”…”Quiet”…& ”Humble”

“At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful Mother weeping, Close to Jesus to the last”

JMJ