Lady of Sorrows, Woman for All
September 15, 2020
If there is one title of the Virgin Mother of Christ that all Christians should agree on, it is “Our Lady of Sorrows.” John the Evangelist is very clear that in the hour of Jesus’s passion, crucifixion and death, He was guarded by a handful of Roman soldiers, and surrounded by a vicious mob of Jewish and Gentile onlookers, who cursed and made fun of Him. But John also recorded, as an eyewitness, the fact that he, John, was present in his role of “beloved disciple,” and that Mary Magdalene, was there, a symbol of all those, like us, who are forgiven by the action of Jesus on the cross. And, herself the one full of grace even at Christ’s Incarnation, Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, was there. She had the duty, sorrow and privilege of being present, as Fr. Chaminade taught, in all of Christ’s mysteries. So she was there to be with her Son as He, the high priest, offered ultimate obedience to the Father in the final act of His eternal, life-giving love-drama, and to give herself also to John’s care at her Son’s command.
What a vivid picture these verses of St. John paint for us. Mary was there, of course, in the crowd as her Son was condemned by Pilate. She followed Him through the via dolorosa, which we had the privilege to trace when we visited the Holy Land. She probably watched the soldiers nail Him to the cross, hearing the words she knew He would say, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And there, near the cross, she heard His final breaths, His final commendation of herself to John, and John to her as her son, and the words of prayer that accompanied His last breath. Like Jerusalem in the midst of destruction, Mary, more than any other woman of history, could ask in the words of Lamentations, “Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow!” And yet, her faith, itself a gift from her divine Son, would continue to sustain her through the whole three days until she heard the news she, alone among the disciples, expected with her whole heart: “The Lord is risen and has appeared to Peter.” Mary, like her Son, learned obedience through what she suffered, and found hope and glory as we must beneath the cross.
What meaning does Mary have for Christians through the ages? Why is this title, “Lady of Sorrows,” so popular in devotion? Have we not all known a lady of sorrows? Perhaps a Gold-Star mother burying her only son back from some far-off country, or another mother saying farewell to her child, killed in a drive-by, or yet another weeping alone in a nursing home because her adult child, suffering from emphysema or lung cancer, had succumbed to this disease strangely titled “novel.” Most of the women of the world, at some time or another in their lives, will be “ladies of sorrows.” And we can hope and pray for them, that they will take the Mother of Jesus as not only their Lady of Sorrows, but also as the Lady of Hope, the kind of mother that all of us need and want, because she suffered even more than they, and yet triumphed through Jesus.
Whatever honor and respect is due to Mary is solely because of the life, death and resurrection of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. If Jesus had not taken on a human nature in her womb, with her God-inspired consent, becoming fully human without losing any aspect of divinity, then humanity would have continued in its lowly, sinful state, and we all would have been without rescue, without hope. So honoring her and praying with her is more than anything an act of adoring and thanking the Lord Jesus Christ. May we at the end of our lives celebrate with her and all the saints and angels in the presence of the Blessed Trinity, forever and ever, Amen.
