IV
Meeting
of Mary and Jesus on the Way to Calvary
St. Bernardine says, that to form an
idea of the greatness of Mary's
grief in losing her Jesus by death, we must consider the love that this
Mother bore to her Son. All mothers feel the sufferings of their
children as their own. Hence, when the Canaanitish woman entreated our
Saviour to deliver her daughter from the devil that tormented her, she
asked Him rather to pity her, the mother, than her daughter: Have mercy
on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously troubled
by a devil. [Matt. xv. 22] But what mother ever loved her son as
Mary loved Jesus? He
was her only Son, reared amidst so many troubles; a most amiable Son,
and tenderly loving His Mother; a Son Who, at the same time that He was
her Son, was also her God, Who had come on earth to enkindle in the
hearts of all the fire of Divine love, as He Himself declared: I am
come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be
kindled? [Luke xii. 49]
Let us only imagine what a flame He must have enkindled in
that pure heart of His holy Mother, void as it was of every earthly
affection. In fine, the Blessed Virgin herself told St. Bridget, "that
love had rendered her heart and that of her Son but one." That
blending together of servant and Mother, of Son and God, created in the
heart of Mary a fire composed of a thousand flames. But the whole of
this flame of love was afterwards, at the time of the Passion,
changed into a sea of grief, when St. Bernardine declares, "that if
all the sorrows of the world were united, they would not equal that of
the glorious Virgin Mary." Yes, because, as Richard of St. Laurence
writes, "the more tenderly His Mother loved, so much the more deeply
was she wounded." The greater was her love for Him, the greater was
her grief at the sight of His sufferings; and especially 'when she met
her Son, already condemned to death, and bearing His Cross to the place
of punishment. This is the fourth sword of sorrow that we have this day
to consider.
The Blessed Virgin
revealed
to St. Bridget, that when the time of
the
Passion of our Lord was approaching, her eyes were always filled with
tears, as she thought of her beloved Son, Whom she was about to lose
on earth, and that the prospect of that approaching suffering caused
her to be seized with fear, and a cold sweat to cover her whole body.
Behold, the appointed
day at
last came, and Jesus, in tears, went to
take leave of His Mother, before going to death. St. Bonaventure,
contemplating Mary on that night, says: "Thou didst spend it without
sleep, and whilst others slept thou didst remain watching." In the
morning the disciples of Jesus Christ came to this afflicted Mother,
the one to bring her one account, the other another; but all were
tidings of sorrow, verifying in her the prophecy of Jeremias: Weeping,
she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is
none to
comfort her of all them that were dear to her. [[Lam. i. 2] Some then came to
relate to her the cruel treatment of her Son in the house of Caiphas;
and others, the insults He had received from Herod. Finally---to come
to
our point, I omit all the rest---St.
John came, and announced to Mary
that the most unjust Pilate had already condemned Him to die on the
Cross. I say the most unjust Pilate; for, as St. Leo remarks, "This
unjust judge condemned Him to death with the same lips with which he
had declared Him innocent." "Ah! afflicted Mother," said St. John,
"thy Son is already condemned to death; He is already gone forth,
bearing Himself His Cross, on His way to Calvary," as the Saint
afterwards related in his Gospels: and bearing His
Own Cross, He went
forth to that place which is called Calvary. [John xix. 17] "Come. if thou desirest to see Him,
and bid Him a last farewell, in some street through which He must pass."
Mary goes with St.
John, and
by the Blood with which the way is
sprinkled, she perceives that her Son has already passed. This she
revealed to St. Bridget: " By the footsteps of my Son, I knew where He
had passed: for along the way the ground was marked with Blood."
St. Bonaventure represents the afflicted Mother taking a shorter way,
and placing herself at the corner of a street, to meet her afflicted
Son as He was passing by. "The most sorrowful Mother," says St.
Bernard, "met her most sorrowful Son." While Mary was waiting in that
place, how much must she have heard said by the Jews, who soon
recognized her, against her beloved Son, and perhaps even words of
mocking against herself.
Alas, what a scene of
sorrows then presented itself before her!---the
nails, the hammers, the cords, the fatal instruments of the death of
her Son, all of which were borne before Him. And what a sword must the
sound of that trumpet have been to her heart, which proclaimed the
sentence pronounced against her Jesus!
But behold, the
instruments,
the trumpeter, and the executioners, have
already passed; she raised her eyes, and saw, O God! a young Man
covered with Blood and wounds from head to foot, a wreath of thorns on
His head, and two heavy beams on His shoulders, She looked at Him, and
hardly recognized Him, saying, with Isaias, and we have seen
Him, and there was no sightliness. [Is. liii. 2] Yes, for the wounds, the bruises, and
the clotted Blood, gave Him the appearance of a leper: we have thought Him
as it were a leper; [Is.
liii. 4] so that He could
no longer be known: and His look was,
as it were, hidden and despised; whereupon we esteemed Him not. [Ibid.
3]
But at length love revealed Him to her, and as soon as she knew that it
indeed was He, ah, what love and fear must then have filled her heart!
as St. Peter of Alcantara says in his meditations. On the one hand she
desired to behold Him, and on the other she dreaded so heartrending a
sight. At length They looked at each other. The Son wiped from His eyes
the clotted Blood, which, as it was revealed to St. Bridget, prevented
Him from seeing, and looked at His Mother, and the Mother looked at her
Son. Ah, looks of bitter grief, which, as so many arrows, pierced
through and through those two beautiful and loving souls.
When Margaret, the
daughter
of Sir Thomas More, met her father on his
way to death, she could only exclaim, "O father! father!" and fell
fainting at his feet. Mary, at the sight of her Son, on His way to
Calvary, did not faint; no, for it was not becoming, as Father Suarez
remarks, that this Mother should lose the use of her reason; nor did
she die, for God reserved her for greater grief; but though she did not
die, her sorrow was enough to have caused her a thousand deaths.
The Mother would have
embraced Him, as St. Anselm says, but the guards
thrust her aside with insults, and urged forward the suffering Lord;
and Mary followed Him. Ah, holy Virgin, whither goest thou? To Calvary.
And canst thou trust thyself to behold Him Who is thy life, hanging on
a Cross? And thy life shall
be, as it were, hanging before thee. [Deut. xxviii. 66] "Ah, stop, my mother" (says St.
Laurence Justinian, in the name of the
Son) "where goest thou? Where wouldst thou come? If thou comest
whither I go, thou wilt be tortured with My sufferings, and I with
thine." But although the sight of her dying Jesus was to cost her
so
bitter sorrow, the loving Mary will not leave Him: the Son advanced,
and the Mother followed, to be also crucified with her Son, as the
Abbot William says: "the Mother also look up her cross and followed,
to be crucified with Him."
"We even pity wild
beasts,'"
as St. John Chrysostom writes; and did
we see a lioness following her cub to death, the sight would move us to
compassion. And shall we not also be moved to compassion on seeing Mary
follow her immaculate Lamb to death? Let us, then, pity her, and let us
also accompany her Son and herself, by bearing with patience the cross
that our Lord imposes on us. St. John Chrysostom asks why Jesus Christ,
in His other sufferings, was pleased to endure them alone, but in
carrying His Cross was assisted by the Cyrenean? He replies, that it
was "that thou mayest understand that the cross of Christ is not
sufficient without thine."
EXAMPLE.
Our Saviour one day
appeared
to Sister Diomira, a nun in Florence, and
said, "Think of Me and love Me, and I will think of thee and love
thee." At the same time He presented her with a bunch of flowers and a
cross, signifying thereby that the consolations of the Saints in this
world are always to be accompanied by the cross. The cross unites souls
to God. Blessed Jerome Emiliani,
when a soldier, and loaded with sins,
was shut up by his enemies in a tower. There, moved by his misfortunes,
and enlightened by God to change his life, he had recourse to
the ever-blessed Virgin; and from that time, by the help of this Divine
Mother, he began to lead the life of a Saint, so much so that he
merited once to see the very high place that God had prepared for Him
in Heaven. He became the founder of the religious Order of the
Somaschi, died as a Saint, and has lately been canonized by the holy
Church.
Prayer.
My sorrowful Mother,
by the
merit of that grief which thou
didst feel in seeing thy beloved Jesus led to death, obtain me the
grace, that I also may bear with patience the crosses which God sends
me. Happy indeed shall I be, if I only know how to accompany thee with
my cross until death. Thou with thy Jesus---and You were both
innocent---hast carried a far heavier cross; and
shall I, a sinner, who
have deserved Hell, refuse to carry mine? Ah, immaculate Virgin, from
thee do I hope for help to bear all crosses with patience. Amen.
|
