The Third Sorrow Of Our Lady
... Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
Our Lady can compassionate every mother and bride who has lost son or husband at sea, at war, or carried away by the Vicissitudes of life. Our Lady can compassionate for every stillbirth, every accident victim, and especially the countless St Monicas who have seen their wayward sons and daughters flit from worldly habitat to another, searching like a deer for a spring to quench their infinite thirst. But the Third Sorrow of Our Lady was much more than merely losing her son for those three miserable days. Oh, so much more!!
The good theologians tell us that in Hell two principle pains are manifest, that of Sense and that of Loss. And while the burnings, the thirst, the hunger, and the stench of the Damned is indeed extreme, they pale compared to the Pain of Loss. And this is exactly what Our Lady experienced in her Third Great Sorrow. And she experienced this pain not as the Ordinary Damned do, but to a degree greater than all the misery of the minions of Hell put together. Why? Because she alone loved God perfectly with her whole Mind, her whole Heart, her whole Soul, and her whole Strength. Since her Immaculate Conception, even in the Womb of St Anne, this had been her Opus Magnum. To contemplate the Mysteries of Eternity, Salvation History, and the Infinite Godhead was her whole Labor, her whole Joy, and her whole Love. Unike us Poor SInners, she dwelt in perfection, tainted by not the least inordinate attachment or affection. Nor was she distracted by the least slothful impulse, but during her whole life her labor had been that of an Olympic Athlete strenuously striving after, per St Paul, a Perishable Crown.
And now, what wrenching Agony, what confusion, what distress, and what misery. A thousand cords pulled her in conflicting directions across length and breadth and depth. A million temptations to doubt and despair assailed her. She was lost in a pit of agony, swept hither and nigh by the torrent of her own tears. St Joseph beheld her distress- this is one of His Sorrows also- and could do nothing to comfort her, but continue diligently to retrace their steps back to the Forbidding City of Jerusalem. Dare he again broach its precincts? Dare he risk sighting the dreaded Archelaus and his henchmen? But he swallowed his fears, and led his dolorous wife into the Maw of Iniquity. They had looked everywhere but that one dreaded place. Days ago he had done the minimum necessary. Now he would have to go round its perimeter, inquiring, "Have you seen a Boy of Twelve?" And then someone eventually more than likely said "Oh, there is a Very Young Man of Marvelous Words, and how the Priests and the Court are Spellbound in His Presence!"
St Joseph, summoning all courage, marched into the temple, His Wife in Tow. He who had feared to dwell in Bethlehem, in the vicinity of Murderous Jerusalem, now walked boldly across the Court of the Gentiles, the Women's Court, and the Men's Court to the threshold of the Altars of Sacrifice. Anything could happen. The soldiers might slaughter His Son at any moment. Perhaps they were waiting for Him and Our Lady also, that they might put an end to anymore Virginal Conceptions. Our Lord Jesus Christ sees them, and as they come into earshot, His Mother Says, almost in exasperation, "Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold Thy Father and I have sought thee sorrowing."
He, in a seemingly trite and sarcastic manner, replied: "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know, that I must be about My Father's business?" Now, St Luke immediately adds: "And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them." [St Luke, Chapter Two, Verse Fifty.]
But Our Lady immediately understood that: "My Son [Daughter], reject not the correction of the Lord: and do not faint when Thou art chastised by Him: For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth: and as a Father in the Son [Daughter] He pleaseth Himself" [Proverbs Chapter Three, Verses Eleven and Twelve]. And that was her joy. As Luke states, she pondered these things in Her Immaculate Heart. Slowly she would begin to understand her great role as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces. Meanwhile, while we often recall that while Our Lady is the Mother of the Son and Spouse of the Holy Ghost, we tend to forget sometimes that she remains the Daughter of the Father, a Mere Creature.
Our Lord abandoned her because she could not share beneath the Foot of the Cross this particular pain of His Passion, which He would express from the Holy Wood of the Cross, because hers would be a more immediate occupation, which shall be elaborated in its time. Meanwhile, as the years went by, Our Lady would become more cognizant of her role, for she too "advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men."
Topic: The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady (Read 75288 times)