And you yourself a sword will pierce

15 SEPTEMBER (Lk 2,33-35)

Mary is a true image of suffering, and crushed humanity, ripped to shreds by the sin of her children. The cry of Jerusalem because it is reduced to rubble is nothing compared to the pain of the Mother of Jesus. Her Son is the Innocent, the Holy, and the Immaculate one. He is the holiness of God and man. Yet the world crucified him by envy and folly.

How lonely she is now, the once crowded city! Widowed is she who was mistress over nations; The princess among the provinces has been made a toiling slave. Bitterly she weeps at night, tears upon her cheeks, With not one to console her of all her dear ones; Her friends have all betrayed her and become her enemies. Judah has fled into exile from oppression and cruel slavery; Yet where she lives among the nations she finds no place to rest: All her persecutors come upon her where she is narrowly confined. The roads to Zion mourn for lack of pilgrims going to her feasts; All her gateways are deserted, her priests groan, Her virgins sigh; she is in bitter grief. Her foes are uppermost, her enemies are at ease; The Lord has punished her for her many sins. Her little ones have gone away, captive before the foe. Gone from daughter Zion is all her glory: Her princes, like rams that find no pasture, Have gone off without strength before their captors. Jerusalem is mindful of the days of her wretched homelessness, When her people fell into enemy hands, and she had no one to help her; When her foes gloated over her, laughed at her ruin. Through the sin of which she is guilty, Jerusalem is defiled; All who esteemed her think her vile now that they see her nakedness; She herself groans and turns away. Her filth is on her skirt; she gave no thought how she would end. Astounding is her downfall, with no one to console her. Look, O Lord, upon her misery, for the enemy has triumphed! The foe stretched out his hand to all her treasures; She has seen those nations enter her sanctuary Whom you forbade to come into your assembly. All her people groan, searching for bread; They give their treasures for food, to retain the breath of life. “Look O Lord, and see how worthless I have become! “Come, all you who pass by the way, look and see Whether there is any suffering like my suffering, which has been dealt me When the Lord afflicted me on the day of his blazing wrath. “From on high he sent fire down into my very frame; He spread a net for my feet, and overthrew me. He left me desolate, in pain all the day. “He has kept watch over my sins; by his hand they have been plaited: They have settled about my neck, he has brought my strength to its knees; The Lord has delivered me into their grip, I am unable to rise. (Cf. Lam 1,1-22).

Mary is invoked in the Church with the title of Queen of Martyrs. Never might there be human pain similar to hers due to the reason that there might never be another child similar to hers in the world. Not only because Jesus is the Holy, the Innocent, the Immaculate, and the sinless One; but because her Son is God, the Creator of man, the one who made him. The One who gave life to man, was put to death by man. He who raised man, was lowered by man. He who comes to give glory to man, was disgraced, discredited, despised, and vilified by man.

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

The pain of Mary is different than any other pain because she has no stain of sin, with a most pure heart, an immaculate body, not subject to the harshness and callousness of sin, with a mind filled with the Holy Spirit, with an intelligence that is above all other created intelligence about things concerning God. To make a comparison: we are like blocks of bronze before the light. Mary is in all similar to a photographic film. She is most sensitive to every pain. The supreme truth, the supreme knowledge, the highest wisdom are in her who sees her Crucified Son and for her most high sensitivity she makes it all her own. It is as if she herself were on the cross in place of her Son. The more we grow in holiness, the greater the pain. Mary is most blessed in her grief.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels, and Saints give us the true faith in pain.