Our Mother’s Heart

“The divine Redeemer,” writes Pope John Paul II, “wishes to penetrate the soul of every sufferer through the heart of his holy Mother.” It is a heart we can trust because it, too, has been pierced. Blessed Henry Suso prays, “My wounds are known to you, loving Mother…. When I completely despair of God and of myself, thinking of you, recalling you, my spirit comes alive again as if out of the deepest darkness.”

The crucified Jesus commands his mother, “Behold, your son!” (Jn 19: 26). He means every one of us. Behold us where? In the midst of our own daily crucifixions. Behold us how? Blessed John Paul II says that “Mary’s sharing in the drama of the cross makes this event more deeply human and helps the faithful to enter into the mystery…. Mary’s hope at the foot of the cross contains a light stronger than the darkness that reigns in many hearts.” The presence of Mary at Calvary inserts the full force of her immaculate, glorious humanity into an act of horrific inhumanity. The curse of loneliness lies at the root of all human misery and wretchedness, but that misery is worsened when we are alone in our suffering. God wants us never to be alone again when we experience the cross; the mystery of Our Lady of Sorrows is the way out of alienation, desolation, and despair.

– Fr. Peter John Cameron, O. P., Novenas for the Church Year