Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Homily: Sept 15 2015 - Our Lady of Sorrows - Mary weeps with us and for us

This beautiful feast invites us to enter into the sorrow of Mary at the Cross. Mary was not just a passive bystander, but an integral participant at the cross.  Her heart was pierced seven times as only a mother’s heart could be as she watched her son pierced and dying before her.  Love is authentic when we are sorrowful when a loved one suffers.  This feast in fact was originally known as “Our Lady of Compassion”.    For the word compassion comes from the latin, cum + passio – to suffer with.

Mary fulfills the second Beatitude: Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Mary mourns and suffers with Jesus.  Yet, that beatitude also refers to the mourning over sin.  We are blessed when we mourn that in sin we are separated from God. Mary mourns not just for a dying son, but a son who died for sin, for our sins.  Mary therefore weeps for us, we who so often insufficiently mourn over our sins. 

Saint John Paul II referred many times to our cultures “loss of the sense of sin”.  We slough off sin, pretend that it doesn’t matter.  Everyone does it, so it must be okay.  But no, sin is abhorrent to the goodness of God. And rarely do we sufficiently grieve over the great loss of grace which our sins bring. Mary mourns for those who refuse to look upon the crucifix with contrite hearts.  Mary mourns for the baptized who so often continue to choose the empty promises of the Evil One rather than the life-filled promises of Christ. 

Mourning over sin is the only road to joy.  For it is only then can appreciate what Jesus did for us. Psalm 30 speaks of God’s promise to turn our mourning into joyful dancing.

When we learn from Mary at the foot of the Cross of Jesus, we also learn how to stand at the foot of the cross of all our brothers and sisters who suffer, and how to bear courageously our own crosses.  For even though she wept, she also trusted, that Jesus suffering would bring about a tremendously greater good.  So to, when we learn from Mary, we learn to trust that our sufferings, born in union with Jesus, offered up to the Father, can be a powerful force for good. So much grace can be won, when we bear our sufferings with patience and trust, without complaint, without cursing God, but to accept even our sufferings as an opportunity to unite our hearts to Christ and to grow in His grace.

May the tears of Mary change our hearts, that we may bear all things in union with Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.




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