In today's liturgy, there is a recommended second collect prayer referring to the sufferings of Mary during this time before holy week. We heard the priest say, “Give your Church the grace to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary devoutly in contemplating the Passion of Christ." And so, for hundreds of years, the Church has dedicated the Friday before Good Friday as a time to honor Our Mother of Sorrows. There is no one who can help us enter into the sufferings of Christ better than Mary, since no one was nearer to his heart than she, who walked with him on the road to Calvary.
I am sure that Mary never forgot the words of Simeon when she first presented her son to God in the temple of Jerusalem. "Listen carefully, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that is opposed. And a sword of deep sorrow will pierce through your soul so that the hearts of many may be revealed to you." (Luke 2)
During the many years as she watched him grow from childhood into early adult life, those words would periodically come back to haunt her, not knowing quite when this prophecy would become a reality. There were many times during the public life of Jesus when I could imagine that she held her breath and asked herself if this was the day; perhaps when they threw him out of the synagogue in Nazareth, or during the many times when the Pharisees and others would denounce his teachings and attribute his miracles to the devil.
Today, on this Friday, we are reminded that these days before Holy Week must have heightened her anxiety as Jesus took such a strong and definitive stand against the religious authorities when he rebuked them for allowing God's temple to become a den of thieves. Surely these actions of her son could only lead to the fulfillment of Simeon's dire words.
In today's first reading from the prophet Jeremiah, we hear of the growing resistance against God’s chosen one, as Jeremiah had prophesied, "I hear the whisperings of many: Terror on every side! Let’s denounce him! [And further on] perhaps he will be trapped, then we can prevail and take our vengeance on him."
We see clearly how the Old Testament's prophecies of a suffering servant were fulfilled in the ignominious death of God's only begotten son. Let us, in this Eucharist, ask Mary for the grace to walk with her as she heard the proclamation of death by Pilate, witnessed the agony of the scourging and way of the cross, and share her broken heart at the words, "it is finished."
The words of a common song by Frederick Faber, which we often sing at communion time, can be a tender reminder of the depth of her love and a desire that we, too, are called to imitate her undying love for our blessed redeemer: "Had I but Mary's sinless heart to love thee with my dearest king -- Oh what bursts of fervent praise thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing.''
– Sister Helen R. Boyd, OP
Sister Helen resides in Dominican Convent where she serves on the Life Enrichment Committee and co-chairs the Mission Outreach Committee.