By Father Scott Archer
April 21, 2019
“He
is risen” (Mk 16:6).
The
sufferings of Mary at the foot of the cross were real and agonizing as she
gazed upon what men had done to her Son. It was an agony we cannot imagine, and
this transpiercing of her soul—what Simeon at the Presentation had described as
a sword that would pierce her soul—was very deep. Faith does not take away
suffering, though what she suffered was neither for trial, purification, nor
did it stem from any doubt in God’s salvific plan. Since she was without sin
and had no need to be tried, her suffering came from pure love.
She
knew what her Son had to undergo in order to redeem mankind, and she believed
He would rise from the dead as He had proclaimed, but this did not diminish her
suffering in any way. Though not recorded in Scripture, Christian tradition
holds that Our Lord first visited His mother after He rose from the dead. Referring
to a revelation by Christ, St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “He told me that
immediately after His resurrection He went to see Our Lady because she then had
great need and that the pain she experienced so absorbed and transpierced her
soul that she did not return immediately to herself to rejoice in that joy. By
this I understood how different was this other transpiercing of my soul. But
what must have been that transpiercing of the Blessed Virgin’s soul! He also
said that He remained a long time with her because it was necessary to console
her.”
As
the Mother of God, it was only fitting that the first to learn of the
resurrection was she who had brought forth the Redeemer and experienced the anguish
of Calvary. The Carmelite priest Andrea Mastelloni, O. Carm., wrote, “The pain
she did not experience when she gave birth to her divine Son, increased a
thousand times (as we say in the Office of her Compassion in the Carmelite
Breviary: ‘You did not feel pain when you gave birth to your Son; when your Son
was dying you suffered this pain a thousand times increased’), she experienced
at the death of her Son. This was the hour of the spiritual childbearing, the
hour in which all souls were redeemed and regenerated. The Mother of Christ
became the Mother of Christians.” As children of Our Lady, we announce the joy that
overcame her grief because the resurrection of Our Lord is the miracle that
confirms His triumph over sin and death.
Because
Jesus rose from the dead, we have our own future resurrection in which we may hope
if we persevere in sanctifying grace. It is the promised resurrection that is
even now shared by Our Lady, who was assumed body and soul into heaven and is a
sign of our own future resurrection. She mirrors the beauty and magnificence of
her glorified Son, as the Carmelite mystic John of Saint Samson, O. Carm., wrote,
“… as though You and Your Mother were one and the same. She is truly one with
You, considering her in the depths of Your being, but considered apart from You
she is a different being. But what am I saying? She does not separate herself
from You, nor You from her, and her being in You and You in her eternally fills
all blessed creatures with indescribable and limitless joy and glory.”
We
are joyful in the resurrection because Christ conquered sin and death. As the
Mother of all the faithful shared in His suffering and now shares in His
resurrection through her glorified body united with her soul in heaven, so we may
have hope in eternal life after our sufferings in this world have ended. Our
Lady intercedes for us, her children, that we may use all the graces which come
to us through her hands to persevere in the Catholic faith and be welcomed one
day into the kingdom of heaven.
