September 17, 2023

Solemnity of Our Lady of Sorrows  

She is Our Mother…She Understands!

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

You may have already heard this story—it is about a man who got into a taxi in Dublin. Riding along, the passenger leaned forward and tapped the cabbie on the shoulder to ask a question. The cabbie let out a horrible scream, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, and drove over a curb. Only by a few inches did they miss being hurled into the River Liffey. A stunned cabbie was finally able to say, “Sorry, sir! You scared the devil out of me!” The passenger replied, “Well, I didn’t think that a tap on the shoulder could be so alarming!” But the cabbie said, “The fault is entirely mine. You see, this is my first day driving a taxi. I’ve driven a hearse for the past twenty-five years!

Don’t we all experience various fears? Don’t we face problems that frighten us? Don’t we experience anxieties and sorrows? We all do! Our instinctive response is to run from them. We try to avoid them for ourselves and we try our best to shield our loved ones from them.

Today we honor our Blessed Mother, not under one of her many titles that highlight our glories and privileges, but a title that reminds us that she also experienced the fears, anxieties, and sorrows of life. The Gospels reveal that Mary, the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven was also a woman who had a difficult life, a woman who knew confusion and heartache but did not run from them. St. Luke tells us that she pondered such moments in her heart. On the day Mary and Joseph presented the infant Jesus in the Temple, Simeon took the child Jesus in his arms and prophesied that a sword would pierce Mary’s heart. When those moments came, she surely clung to the words of the Archangel Gabriel “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.”

Today’s Gospel takes us to Calvary—the zenith of Mary’s sorrows. From the cross, Jesus speaks to his mother, “Woman, behold your Son.” He was not saying, “Look at me, your son, crucified” but “Behold your son, John who is standing now at your side.” Then he spoke to John, whom the Church has always seen as standing in for all of us—the Church: “Behold your Mother.”

This was an act of entrustment of mother to son and son to mother. Think of it—in the midst of his agony on the cross, at the central moment of redemption—Our Lord was thinking of his mother and thinking of you and me. We can say, “She is ours and we are hers.”

Today’s Solemnity (the patronal solemnity of our parish) invites us to stand with Mary remembering that she is not some remote figure, someone far removed from our experience. Mary understands life and its struggles. She did not run away from life’s realities and its demands. In Mary we have a mother who protects, comforts, and intercedes for us. We have mother who is always concerned for our welfare just was she was concerned for the newly married couple at Cana. Think of Mary there at that celebration. She was probably seated by the kitchen and overheard the waiters saying that the wine was running out and that the newlyweds would certainly be embarrassed. Mary, ever sensitive, wanted to spare the couple any humiliations. She knew how to solve the problem. She turned to her Son.

Let us go to her when we feel that we are lacking what we need in our spiritual life (when our wine runs short). Let us go to her, as a child would go to a mother, with our bruises, our cuts, our inner hurts. She is our patroness and in prayer we turn to her today:

“Holy Mary, the lamp of your faith always shines bright. Put oil into our poor lamps so that they may light our way through life. Help our feeble faith. Difficulties often frighten us; a misunderstanding is enough to extinguish our zeal. You stood faithfully by the cross of Jesus our Savior. You believed that goodness triumphs. You never doubted that love defeats hatred and all malice. Mother, pray for us and draw us ever closer to your Divine Son. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!”