+ One week ago today we celebrated the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today we celebrate a very important aspect of her life: the spiritual martyrdom that she was called to endure. Any parent knows that being an integral part of their childrens' joys and sorrows, successes and failures, triumphs and tragedies goes along with the job of being parent. But for Mary it was particularly intense because her son was also the very Son of God, he was pure goodness sent into a cold and dark world to redeem it, he was called to be love in the midst of hate.
As Simeon foretold he would be a sign of contradiction his whole life long, and Mary would, in witnessing it all, be wounded in her own heart continually. The seven chief sorrows of Mary have been recorded as: the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the flight into Egypt, Jesus being lost in Jerusalem, the encounter with Jesus on the way to Calvary, the Crucifixion, the taking of the body down from the cross, and Jesus' burial.
Though Mary's joys were also a part of her life: the Annunciation, the Nativity of Jesus, the Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection of Jesus, the Ascension of Jesus, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, her Coronation in heaven - they must be understood as counterparts of her sorrows.
In the end, though, they confirm the very message of redemption: that the Cross of Suffering, the Cross of Christ's Suffering, (a feast which we celebrated just yesterday) can now be transformed into a Cross of Victory and Triumph because Jesus also rose from the dead!
And so today we celebrate today Mary's sorrow, but also her triumph – and also our own participation in this dynamic. With her prayers our sadness can be turned into joy as well – we can count on it!
Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary; without dying you won the martyr's crown beneath the Cross of the Lord.
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