"...and a sword will pierce through your own soul also."

Today is Holy Saturday and Jesus is entombed. My thoughts today are on His mother, on this day when she has borne this seventh sword piercing her heart and now fully 'earned' the title Our Lady of Sorrows- an accolade I am certain her human heart would rather have avoided if not for her incredible obedience to the Will of God.

There is a beautiful account of Mary standing in a doorway as Jesus was processed through the streets on the way to Calvary. She looks upon the body of her son: He has been beaten, He has been scourged, His head is pierced by a crown of thorns, His blood is flowing and He is so weak, yet forced to carry his patibulum, bowed beneath its punishing weight. As their eyes meet, feeling the intensity of His mother's pain at the sight of Him, Jesus falls to the ground for the second time. No words are spoken but the Mother's heart breaks wide open yet again, pierced by this Fourth Sorrow. Oblivious to the personal danger to which this exposed her, she ran to her son, threw herself on her knees at His side and embraced Him. I believe she did this instinctively, to bring HIM comfort.  And I believe she was able, by this, from deep within her own pain, to give her son the courage to get up and finish the Work before Him, in the way in which it had to come to pass.

These, from my perspective, are Mary's everlasting and most profound teachings to all of humanity (actually, regardless of our religious persuasions, or if we haven't any at all): how to obey Divine Will in a state of Perfect Grace; how to stand steady in the face of ridicule, opposition, hatred, at the foot of the Cross (symbolic of whatever our personal human suffering), out of Perfect Courage and her ultimate lesson, the greatest of all- how to do this from a place of Perfect Love. 

Mary, Divine Mother of Sorrows, bless us who sorrow in any and all ways. Teach us how to live with Open Hearts despite the pain and vulnerabilty that often goes hand in hand with this. Teach us how enter and dwell within a Space of Grace. And thank you for the Lesson of your life. 

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