“Blessed Lady, if I imitate your humility, I will be protected against temptations to pride. If I take on your purity, no impurity will tempt me. And so, with every other virtue you display. Help me to cover myself in the spiritual armor of God!” –Dr. Paul Thigpen, “A Year with Mary”
“God will take into account our crosses. He seemed to suggest that in the parable of Dives and Lazarus: ‘Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted and thou art tormented’ (Luke 16:25). There will be a bright jewel of merit for those who suffer in this world. Because we live in a world where position is determined economically, we forget that in God’s world the royalty are those who do His Will.” –Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, “Seven Words of Jesus and Mary”
“If you are tempted, remember that He was tried before you. If you are governed by pride, self-love, or vanity, think of Jesus during His Passion, covered with blows, spat upon, humiliated, and crowned with thorns. If you are beset by laziness and sensuality, think of Jesus covered with a bloody sweat, scourged, carrying His Cross; think of Him hanging upon it, His hands and feet pierced, His sacred body torn, devoured by thirst and shattered by pain. If you are a slave to material things, think of Jesus poor and wholly destitute at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, and during His public life; think of Him upon the Cross, rendering His soul in the supreme embrace of poverty.” –Bishop Emmanuel de Gibergues, “Strength in Simplicity”
By being Mother of the Suffering Servant, Holy Mary was tied inexplicably to those Sorrowful Mysteries which were necessary for our salvation. Jesus may seem cruel in sharing this tremendous burden with His Mother, but her constant fiat was her act of love—carrying her cross and following Him all the way to Calvary. Love permits suffering, as long as it brings us into greater unity with Him. He sacrifices Himself for us, so that we may not suffer—being forever separated from our God.
A Prayer from CNEWA:
I ask You, Lord, help us to always keep before our eyes the example of Mary, who accepted the death of her Son as a great mystery of salvation. Help us to act with our gaze fixed on the good of others; and to die in the hope of the resurrection, conscious that we are never alone or abandoned by God or Mary, the loving Mother ever concerned for her children. Amen.
1 John 3:16
