Mary and the Passion of Our Lord

Lenten Fridays are special. Very good days to meditate on the suffering of Our Lord.

As a mother, it is almost unbearable to think of what Mary must have felt as she encountered Jesus on his way to Calvary.

I found a little solace in an encyclical of Saint Pius X.

Think about God the Father for a second.

Through the mystery of the Trinity, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, are one.
So God, in Jesus the Son, got to choose His own Mother.

He chose Mary.

Think about how perfect she would have to be, to be worthy to carry Him in her womb. To nurse Him, to hold Him, love Him and protect Him. How perfect she would be to be trusted to help shape His human nature.

Not only that, she had to understand the significance of her role in the salvation of humanity. She had to appreciate the magnitude of her responsibility in being the Mother of Our Lord.

Kind of hard to get your brain around that one. God is walking around in the kitchen, he's hungry. Have to make God a snack.

So God made Mary really smart. Wise, as they say in the bible. It means that she got it. She understood how important her Son was and is, that He truly was and is God. And when she stood at the foot of the cross, although her heart undoubtedly broke at the agony of her Son, she rejoiced along with Jesus in His Passion.

In her wisdom, she knew that the Passion was necessary for our salvation. And she knew the Passion was necessary for Jesus to bring you home.

Because Mary, above all things, wants her Son to be happy. And that means having you home with Him in heaven. So however horrible it was to endure, both for Jesus who suffered and for His mother who had to watch her beloved Son in such unimaginable physical, mental and spiritual agony, the Passion was a beautiful thing.

She understood that you are worth it.

She knew that her Son dying on the cross was the greatest triumph the world would ever know.

Most people- Christians, Catholics - live their whole lives and only understand a fraction of what Mary knew.

So she joined her Son and rejoiced through her tears as he suffered on the Cross.

Yep, she is that cool.

And the good news is, she loves you with a mother's heart. She wants more than anything for you to be with her Son one day in heaven.

So open your heart, and ask for her help.

She will answer.

Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is With Thee
Blessed art thou among women
and Blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us Sinners
Now and the hour of our death
Amen

for further reading, see:

Saint Pius X
Encyclical, Ad diem illum, Feb. 2, 1904

Hence that never disassociated manner of life and labors. ... But when the final hour of her Son came, His Mother stood by the cross of Jesus, not just occupied in seeing the dread spectacle, but actually rejoicing that her Only-Begotten was being offered for the salvation of the human race. ... from this common sharing of sufferings and will, she merited to become most worthily the reparatrix of the lost world, and so the dispensatrix of all the gifts which were gained for us by the death and blood of Jesus. ... She ... since she was ahead of all in holiness and union with Christ, and was taken up by Christ into the work of human salvation, she merited congruously, as they say, what Christ merited condignly, and is the chief minister of the dispensation of graces.