Having been conceived without the stain of original sin in virtue of the anticipated merits of the Passion, and free from all personal sin, it seems the Blessed Virgin should not have suffered. Truly, in her case sorrow and death were not the consequence of sin, as they are in ours, but had their origin in the intimate bond she entered into with the divine Savior who was willing to experience suffering and death.
Since Adam and Eve joined together to sin, it was fitting that the New Eve should be associated with the New Adam for the atonement of sin. Now, since the divine Savior willed to suffer for us, the Blessed Virgin voluntarily agreed to take part in His sufferings. Although she had nothing to expiate for herself, out of Our Lady of Compassion charity she found that she had so much to expiate for us. While during her life she endured various physical pains, at the time of Jesus’ Passion she suffered above all morally from the evil of sin which was to cause the death of her Beloved and the eternal death of so many souls. The more a person is filled with the love of the good Lord, the more he or she suffers to see souls turn away from the supreme good. What, then, are we to think of the degree of suffering endured by Our Lady, who was full of grace from her conception and who consequently had a visceral repugnance with regard to the slightest sin! Less than Our Lord, but more than any other creature, she saw the abominable disorder that sin contains, and at the same time she perceived all the deplorable consequences which result from it for Our Lord and for the sinner. According to the Psalmist, “he that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul” (Ps. 10:6).
While Jesus suffered His terrible Passion, the Blessed Virgin showed the greatest compassion. St. Francis de Sales explain in his Treatise on the Love of God the nature of this feeling experienced by Our Lady: “Compassion…is nothing other than a feeling of affection which makes us share in the sufferings of those whom we love; we make our own, in our heart, the pain that they suffer, just as someone who loves with a love of kindness shares in the joy of those whom he loves by making this joy his own in his heart…Love, then, is what unites the heart of the lover with the heart of the beloved. Evils and goods become common.” Thus Mary, united with the bloody sacrifice of her divine Son, endured a sacrifice of compassion for the salvation of sinners. Her union with her Son was so close that, according to Father Faber, “Mary’s compassion was the Passion of Jesus, so to speak, felt and made real in the heart of His Mother."
|
|
Topic: Saint of the day (Read 82672 times)