Why awe is the right response to Our Lady of Sorrows
Here's why Our Lady of Sorrows is about more than having pity on the Mother of God – and why she is called the ‘co-redemptrix.’
Here's why Our Lady of Sorrows is about more than having pity on the Mother of God – and why she is called the ‘co-redemptrix.’
Overly natural approach to Our Lady’s sorrow
Many meditations on Our Lady of Sorrows emphasise the suffering she endured at the foot of the Cross.
For instance, the excellent Practical Meditations for Every Day of the Year offers the following parallel as a way of understanding Our Lady’s suffering:
“To understand in some measure how much she suffers, we must conceive the idea of a mother, the tenderest of mothers, who loves nothing so much as her son, her only son; this Son, the greatest of the children of men, she is forced to see die in the prime of His days, by no natural death, but by the hand of the executioner, surrounded by an angry mob, nailed living on a cross, after having been covered with wounds from head to foot, crowned with thorns; to behold Him struggling with death for three long hours, without being able in the least to assuage His agony!
“Did ever mother suffer such a martyrdom?”
Although the anonymous Jesuit goes further in his meditation, it can sometimes feel like our reflections stop here.
We contemplate Our Lady in light of the other mothers whom we know, and we imagine how they would feel under such circumstances. While there is nothing wrong with this per se, it may cause us to see Our Lady as a passive sufferer, whose merit is based on how pitiable her suffering was.
But in fact, the sorrows of Our Lady should inspire not just pity, but awe – and awe based not just on the profundity of these sorrows, but also on her consent and even agreement to the Passion of her son.
Christ and his Mother’s consent to the Passion
From the first moment of his conception, the God-Man understood and consented to his Father’s command to offer himself as a sacrifice of atonement. Throughout his life, he expressed a longing for the hour of this oblation, which he referred to as a “baptism.”
Over the centuries, some spiritual writers have presented this perspective on the sorrows of Our Lady. She too had a profound understanding of the prophecies of the Old Testament: thus she knew that her Son had been born to die; that Calvary was the reason for the incarnation; and that the Passion represented the greatest act of worship and adoration ever rendered to God, and the triumph of her Son over all the forces of evil.
St Bernardine and others say that her fiat, therefore, had been given, not just to the Incarnation, but also to the Redemption – and she had always understood what it would entail.1 As the anonymous Jesuit already mentioned wrote:
“[W]e may truly say that she endured this martyrdom for thirty-three years, knowing, to the smallest particular, all that awaited her from the hour of Simeon's prophecy.”2
However, it was not just that Our Lady knew what was coming: she also willed it, with her fiat continuing up to and including Calvary itself. She was not simply resigned to the will of God, but conformed to it, such that she willed what he willed.
Tradition also tells us that she not only had a perfect understanding of the Scriptures, but that she was closely united to the movements of the Sacred Heart itself. The first and most obvious implication of this is that she would have shared his sufferings. But we must not forget that Christ willed to suffer and, in a sense, rejoiced that he did so in accomplishment of the Redemption. Thus, the less obvious implication is that Our Lady also willed Christ to suffer, and – in the same mitigated sense – rejoiced that he did so.
In other words, Our Lady did not suffer the Passion in a state of ignorance, nor one merely of resignation and natural grief. Rather, she was also agreeing and consenting to what was happening, and encouraging Christ in his sacrifice. No doubt this itself increased all her other sufferings as well.
The analogy of the Maccabean Mother
Holy Scripture gives us a striking parallel to this consent on the part of Our Lady: the mother of the seven Maccabean martyrs.
This mother suffered her own “martyrdom” with courage, encouraging her seven sons and consenting to their deaths in uniformity with God’s will.
The Maccabean revolt against King Antiochus IV Epiphanes is recounted in the books of the Maccabees. Antiochus – frequently presented as foreshadowing the Antichrist – persecuted the Jewish people, forbade the Jewish religion, and imposed pagan rites on the region.
During this persecution, seven brothers and their mother were arrested and commanded to break the Law by eating pork. When they refused, they were tortured and killed one by one.
The eldest son was the first to die:
“Then the king being angry, commanded fryingpans and brazen caldrons to be made hot: which forthwith being heated, he commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had spoken first: and the skin of his head being drawn off, to chop off also the extremities of his hands and feet, the rest of his brethren and his mother looking on.” (2 Mach 7:3-4)
But this was no scene of helpless lamentation. Scripture gives us a different picture:
“[W]hile he was suffering therein long torments, the rest, together with the mother, exhorted one another to die manfully, saying:
“‘The Lord God will look upon the truth, and will take pleasure in us, as Moses declared in the profession of the canticle; And in his servants he will take pleasure.’” (2 Mach. 7:5-6)
Each brother dies with bold declarations of faith and fidelity to the divine law. The mother does not try to shield her sons from death, but courageously consents to their actions, and exhorts them to face it manfully for the Law of God:
“‘I know not how you were formed in my womb; for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you.
“‘But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, he will restore to you again, in his mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of his laws.’” (2 Mach. 7:20-23)
After the sixth has been killed, the youngest is brought forward—and here the tyrant tries a different tactic. Hoping to break his resolve, he promises him riches and advancement if he only transgressed the Law.
When this fails, he appeals to the mother, begging her to convince the boy. She agrees to speak to him – but this is a ruse. Instead of dissuading him, she seeks to strengthen her son in his martyrdom:
“So bending herself towards him, mocking the cruel tyrant, she said in her own language:
“’My son have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age.
“‘I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them, and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also: so thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren.”
“While she was yet speaking these words, the young man said:
“‘For whom do you stay? I will not obey the commandment of the king, but the commandment of the law which was given us by Moses.’” (2 Mach. 7:26-30).
Her son responds to the king in a manner worthy of his brothers and his mother:
“[T]hou, by the judgment of God, shalt receive just punishment for thy pride.
“But I, like my brethren, offer up my life and my body for the laws of our fathers: calling upon God to be speedily merciful to our nation, and that thou by torments and stripes mayst confess that he alone is God.
“But in me, and in my brethren, the wrath of the Almighty, which hath justly been brought upon all our nation, shall cease.” (2 Mach. 7.36-38)
After his death, Scripture says simply:
“Last of all, the mother also was consumed.” (v. 41)
Holy Scripture’s judgment of the mother
And then comes the final verdict on this extraordinary woman:
“Now the mother was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men, who beheld her seven sons slain in the space of one day, and bore it with a good courage, for the hope that she had in God: and she bravely exhorted every one of them in her own language, being filled with wisdom; and joining a man’s heart to a woman’s thought.” (2 Mach. 7.20-1)
The most striking thing about this account is that the mother was not simply an onlooker as her sons were slaughtered before her eyes.
Her sons were brave, and were prepared to suffer torments and death for God’s glory, rather than disobey his will, to which they were more committed than to their own lives. In this, their mother agreed, consented, and encouraged them.
The last son offered his life specifically as an atoning sacrifice to God, trusting both that he would receive it back in the resurrection, and that this would appease the righteous anger of God: and he did so at his mother’s counsel and encouragement.
This mother’s courage throws into sharper relief our own assumptions about Our Lady of Sorrows. It leads us to ask:
Was she any less committed to the will of God?
Did she offer any less consent to her Son’s sacrifice?
Was her sorrow merely that of maternal loss, or the anguish of a lovingly consenting will?
These questions must be answered in the negative. Although Our Lady seems unlikely to have spoken like the Maccabean mother, it seems impossible that her sentiments and positive conformity to God’s decree could have been less than hers – or that her presence could have been less encouraging to her son.
Over the centuries, spiritual writers have recognised that her greatness lay precisely in this positively willed cooperation with divine providence.
Let us turn to some, and consider how they have honoured Our Lady in these terms.
Fr Peter Gallwey SJ and the Maccabean mother
Fr Peter Gallwey SJ, an Irish Jesuit operating in nineteenth century England, considers Our Lady’s consent throughout his Watches of the Sacred Passion, and expressly refers to the Maccabean mother in this context.
Contemplating Our Lord, slumped on the floor after the scourging, he writes:
“And observe, in wonder, how the Ever-Blessed Mother does not run forward to raise Him up, because in the head of the book it is written of her: I shall do Thy will, O God; and she knows God’s will to be, that on this Good Friday she is to stand, and watch, and listen, and suffer by compassion, till her soul is pierced through and through; but she is not to bind up one wound, or dress, or foment it with oil.
“The holy Fathers picture her as standing there with an obedience to the Divine will, so devoted and loving and perfect, soaring far beyond the obedience of Abraham’s bleeding heart, that undoubtedly, for the glory of her God, and to carry out her Son’s will for man’s redemption, she would herself raise her hand to inflict the wounds, if need were. The Mother was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men; joining a man’s heart to a woman’s thought.” (2 Mach. vii.)3
Considering the crowning of thorns, he writes:
“The Ever-Blessed Mother is watching, is listening, is suffering, through her perfect motherly compassion, wound for wound, thorn for thorn. Can there then be a sense in which we may say that she crowns her Son with this diadem? The holy Fathers answer: Yes, assuredly. For she gives her full and entire consent that, to obey the will of His Father and to content the desire of His own Heart, He shall wear this crown.
“Nay, if need were, they add, with a courage and a love and an obedience a thousand times stronger than death, she would herself fix the crown and cause the stream of blood to flow, that so poor sinners might be brought to life, and draw waters in joy out of the fountain of their Saviour.
“The holy angels, gazing on her, bless her with one voice, saying: Thou art the glory of Jerusalem; the hand of the Lord hath strengthened thee; and thou shalt be blessed for ever (Judith xv.)”4
Gallwey emphasises the joint action of Our Lady in the oblation of her Son:
St. Bernardine of Siena, as we have seen, tells us that in the hour of the Incarnation she already gave her consent to the Death of her Son. And St. Bernard, treating of this united action of the Eternal Father and the Most Blessed Mother, writes : “In order to redeem the slave, they sacrificed their Son, their joint possession.”5
He speaks of their shared zeal for God’s glory, and compares her to Abraham sacrificing Isaac:
“We know from St. John's Gospel that the word in the Psalm: The zeal of Thy house hath eaten Me up (Psalm lxviii.) comes from our Lord’s Heart. We may, then, safely assume that on Calvary the zeal for His Eternal Father’s glory is consuming Him more effectually than the drain of His Sacred Blood and this consuming fire of zeal necessarily spreads from His Heart into that of His Mother.
“This zeal impels Him to say: Father, behold I come! and impels her to say, at Nazareth, in Bethlehem, and on Calvary: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to Thy word. The only difference between the Divine Son and the Blessed Mother is, that in Him, as in the sun, the burning and shining fire is ever the same; in her, as in the moon, there can be increase. Throughout her years and days and hours on earth the burning brightness has ever been crescent; waning never.
“On Calvary, then, Jesus, the High Priest, filled with infinite zeal for the glory of His Father, is immolating Himself. And as St. Peter Chrysologus says, that ‘Abraham was immolating himself in his son’—Et immolabat se in filio; so we can most truly say of Holy Mary: She is crucifying herself while crucifying her Son. While offering up as a most perfect holocaust her Son, she is quite as thoroughly immolating herself.”6
Dom Prosper Guéranger on ‘The New Eve’
The beloved author of The Liturgical Year, Dom Prosper Guéranger OSB, expressed similar ideas in his treatment of the feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady in Passion Week. Calling her “the Valiant woman (Prov. 31.10) par excellence,” he writes:
“[…] God had assigned her a great office for that day, and it was to be under the Tree of the Cross that she, the second, was to discharge her office. As the heavenly Father had waited for her consent before He sent His Son into the world; so, likewise, He called for her obedience and devotedness, when the hour came for that Son to be offered up in sacrifice for the world’s Redemption. Was not Jesus hers? her Child? her own and dearest treasure? And yet, God gave Him not to her, until she had assented to become His Mother; in like manner, He would not take Him from her, unless she gave Him back.”7
Although Our Lady is taken to be “The New Eve” based on her consent at the Annunciation, several writers emphasise that it was at Calvary that she truly assumed this role. There is a fittingness here: Eve did not simply watch while Adam ate the fruit, but consented to his disobedience, and encouraged him to disobey – just as Our Lady consents to Christ’s obedience and encourages him to obey.
Her obedience and uniformity with God’s will appears more awe-inspiring at the foot of the Cross than at the Annunciation. However, if we consider that Our Lady knew and understood what being the Mother of the Redeemer would entail, and if we consider that her fiat and obedience continued throughout her life, then Calvary still represents the consummation and crown of what had begun at the Annunciation.
Guéranger continues:
“But, see what this involved, see what a struggle it entailed upon this most loving Heart! It is the injustice, the cruelty, of men that rob her of her Son; how can she, His Mother, ratify, by her consent, the Death of Him, whom she loved with a twofold love, as her Son, and as her God? But, on the other hand, if Jesus be not put to death, the human race is left a prey to Satan, sin is not atoned for, and all the honours and joys of her being Mother of God are of no use or blessing to us.
“This Virgin of Nazareth, this noblest heart, this purest creature, whose affections were never blunted with the selfishness which so easily makes its way into souls that have been wounded by original sin, what shall she do? Her devotedness to mankind, her conformity with the will of her Son who so vehemently desires the world’s salvation, lead her, a second time, to pronounce the solemn FIAT: she consents to the immolation of her Son.
“It is not God’s justice that takes Him from her; it is she herself that gives Him up; but, in return, she is raised to a degree of greatness, which her humility could never have suspected was to be hers:—an ineffable union is made to exist between the two offerings, that of the Incarnate Word and that of Mary; the Blood of the Divine Victim, and the Tears of the Mother, flow together for the redemption of mankind.”8
Guéranger is even so bold as to compare Our Lady to a priest offering Mass:
“We can now understand the conduct and the courage of this Mother of Sorrows. Unlike that other mother, of whom the Scripture speaks, — the unhappy Agar, who, after having sought in vain how she might quench the thirst of her Ismael in the desert, withdrew from him that she might not see him die; — Mary no sooner hears that Jesus is condemned to death, than she rises, hastens to Him, and follows Him to the place where He is to die. And what is her attitude at the foot of His cross? Does her matchless grief overpower her? Does she swoon? or fall? No: the Evangelist says: ‘There stood by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother.’ (John 19:25)
“The sacrificing priest stands, when offering at the altar; Mary stood for such a sacrifice as hers was to be. […]
“Thus, this Mother of Sorrows, when standing on Calvary, blessed us who deserved but maledictions; she loved us; she sacrificed her Son for our salvation. In spite of all the feelings of her maternal heart, she gave back to the Eternal Father the divine treasure He had entrusted to her keeping. The sword pierced through and through her soul, but we were saved; and she, though a mere creature, cooperated with her Son in the work of our salvation.”9
The authors of the Sacrae Theologiae Summa series note that there is a certain sense in which Our Lady may have exercised some sort of “priestly” role, completely unique to her, and distinct from both the ministerial priesthood and that of all the faithful. However, the authors add that this is a distinct question to whether Our Lady “should be called a priest”: they answer in the negative, based on two twentieth-century condemnations of the title by the Holy Office, from which they conclude:
“It is clear that in both cases the Holy Office wished to avoid confusion with the ministerial priesthood in the minds of the less-instructed faithful.”10
Ven. Mary of Agreda and the prayer of Our Lady
Ven. Mary of Agreda’s Mystical City of God, presents a prayer of Our Lady at the crucifixion:
“When the most prudent Mother perceived that now the mysteries of the Redemption were to be fulfilled and the executioners were about to strip the Lord of his clothes for crucifixion, She turned in spirit to the eternal Father and prayed as follows:
“‘My Lord and eternal God, Thou art the Father of thy only-begotten Son, who by eternal generation was born true God of true God, namely Thyself, and by human generation was born from my womb, where I gave Him the nature of man in which He now suffers. I have nursed and sustained Him at my own breast, and as the best of sons who could ever be born of any other creature I love Him as his true Mother; and as his Mother I have a natural right in the Person of his most holy humanity, and never shall thy providence deny a right to one who possesses it and to whom it belongs.
“‘I now offer Thee this right of a Mother and place it anew into thy hands, so thy and my Son may be sacrificed for the Redemption of man. Receive, my Lord, my acceptable offering and sacrifice, since this is greater than if I offered myself to suffer and be sacrificed, not only because my Son is true God of thy own substance, but because this sacrifice costs me a much greater sorrow and pain; for if the lots were exchanged and I would be permitted to die in order to preserve his most holy life, it would be for me a great relief and the fulfillment of my desires.’”
“The eternal Father received this prayer of the exalted Queen with ineffable pleasure and satisfaction. The patriarch Abraham was permitted to go no further than to prefigure and attempt the sacrifice of a son (Gen. 22:12), because the real execution of such a sacrifice God reserved to Himself and to his Onlybegotten. Nor was Sara, the mother of Isaac, informed of the mystical ceremony, this being prevented not only by the prompt obedience of Abraham, but also because he could not trust the maternal love of Sara, who perhaps might have tried to impede the command of the Lord, though she was a just and holy woman.
“But it was not so with most holy Mary, whom the eternal Father could trust without reserve to proportionately cooperate with his eternal will in the sacrifice of his Onlybegotten.”11
Fr Henry James Coleridge on the triumph of Christ and his Mother
The nineteenth century Jesuit
expresses the same idea, emphasising the triumph of the Passion:“Her presence on Calvary was no accident, but a counsel of God. She appears there as she appears in the mystery of the sanctification of St. John Baptist at the Visitation, and in the mystery of the beginning of signs at the marriage-feast of Cana.
“In all these mysteries Mary is an intelligent and willing cooperator in the Divine work which is being accomplished, as she was the cause, by her fiat, of the accomplishment of the Incarnation itself. In the Visitation, her words brought about the interior sanctification of the soul of one of the highest of the saints, the soul of whom our Lord said that among those born of women there had not arisen a greater than he. At Cana, her words brought about the opening of the gates of God’s mercy on mankind in the physical miracles of our Lord.
“On Calvary, she consents, at the cost of infinite pangs of her own, to the Sacrifice on which hangs the redemption of the world, and as she has so large a communication of the pains of that sacrifice, she has also to win thereby her large communication of its powers. It is then that she is crowned as the second Eve, the Mother of all that live.”12
It is for this reason – her consent as “an intelligent and willing cooperator” – that Fr Coleridge speaks of Christ’s death as a moment not only of the bitterest sorrow, but also triumph and even joy:
“When we arrive at the sixth Word, we seem to be drawing near to the moment of victory and triumph. For there cannot but be a satisfaction in the thought that any great work has been accomplished, and an immense boon for the whole world won. […]
“It was a note almost of triumph for our Lord that He could say that all was consummated, the satisfaction for sin, the restoration of the glory of the Father, the salvation of mankind, the foundation of the Church, the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven, and that all the pains and humiliations of the Passion were soon to be over, and the great struggle for the overthrow of the kingdom of Satan perfectly completed.
“All these things would be joy to the heart of our Blessed Lady also, for she loved nothing but the glory of God and the success of the work of her Son, nor could she fail to rejoice over the defeat of Satan, nor could she wish the Passion itself to be prolonged.”13
He considers this interplay of consent and sorrow:
“No doubt as, all through, she had looked first of all to the will of God and His glory in the execution of the Passion, so now the thought that the victory was accomplished, and, as Daniel says, ‘eternal justice brought in’ by the work of her Son, would be uppermost in her mind.
“But in her, as in our Lord, there was no confusion of one thing with another, no overlaying of pain by joy, no smothering of anguish in oblivion on account of some countervailing affection. Her heart had to prepare itself for the sight of His breathing out His last, and this was nearer and nearer to her with every one of the words that fell in succession from His lips.
“And the same may be said of the last great cry, when our Lord most lovingly commended His Soul to His Father. It was a moment full of the holiest affections—a sacramental moment, we may say, for it was the consecration of death for all mankind by the touch of the Incarnate God. It was turning the enemy who had been let loose on man by the sin of Adam into a friend, and whose hands were full of graces and gifts.
“But still to the heart of the Mother at the foot of the Cross it was, with all its elements of triumph and consolation, a moment of the deepest pang that human heart can feel, in the destruction of the life in which she had lived more than in her own.”14
Fr Luis de la Palma on the Pieta
The sixteenth century Jesuit Father Luis de la Palma considers how Our Lady’s consent continued, even after Our Lord was taken down from the Cross:
“‘My Son,’ she would say, ‘who is it that has done thus unto Thee? I do not complain, Lord, of those who have taken Thy life, since Thou didst offer it of Thy own will for them through obedience to Thy Eternal Father. O Eternal Father! blessed be Thy providence, and blessed be Thy bounty and Thy love, Who, in order to give life to slaves, hast delivered to death Thy very Son Himself!
“‘My Son, these were Thy longings; Thy desires are now fulfilled. These wounds, these sufferings, these nails, and this lance which I now see on Thy body — all these are what Thou hast borne throughout all Thy life in Thy Heart. How couldst Thou live, seeing Thou hadst to bear therein so heavy a cross? […]
“‘[I]f Thou wert so conformed to the will of Thy Father then, I also am conformed to Thine, it is sufficient that Thou shouldst have willed it, in order that I should will it also, and enough that Thou shouldst have felt it, in order that I should also feel it. O Eternal Father, Who art well pleased and satisfied with the sacrifice of His body which this innocent Lamb has offered Thee! receive likewise that which His afflicted Mother offers Thee in her heart, and this very day, grant abundant mercy to sinners, since it is for their sakes that Thou hast executed so rigorous justice upon Thy Son.’
“Thus the Blessed Virgin, with a heart pierced with sharpest grief, was rapt in sublimest contemplation, and her Son, Who, but a little season before, being alive, had offered Himself up with burning charity on the arms of a dead Cross, now, being dead, was laid within the arms of His living Mother. She felt all His sufferings, and offered them also, as far as was her part to do so, for the honour of God and the salvation of men, with all the force of the charity communicated to her by the Holy Spirit.
“So well pleasing to God was that love with which, in the midst of so many griefs, the Blessed Virgin strained herself to desire the redemption and salvation of the human race, that, as her Son was made a Mediator and the Redeemer of all mankind, so she also became a mediator and advocate for the same.”15
Conclusion—Let us honour her consent
How was it possible for this positive consent to co-exist with any kind of maternal anguish or tenderness? W.G. Ward explains the “hypothetical act of the will” experienced by Our Lady at the Presentation, when hearing Simeon’s prophecy:
“She was totally exempt from concupiscence and there was therefore no emotion, however transient, of discontent or repugnance: still there was the very keenest emotion of what we may call resigned sorrow.
“An act of the will would at once be elicited, in harmony with this emotion and this act of the will may best be analyzed as a hypothetical act. ‘If this were not God’s will, I should most intensely wish it otherwise.’
“There was no shadow of sin or imperfection in such an act; nothing inconsistent with the most spotless sanctity. It was united throughout with the most unreserved and unqualified submission to God’s will.”16
Ward shows how this consent can indeed be positively voluntary, rather than merely a form of negative resignation – and thus with extraordinarily great sorrow. Seeing her Son suffer, and seeing that she did not actually wish it otherwise – but rather consented to this suffering – must itself have been productive of ever-increasing anguish. Ward even suggests that this same complex but always fully voluntary “interplay” in the will is what caused Christ’s Agony in the Garden. In neither case was there any conflict of the will: and the absence of such conflict was itself the source of the sorrow, as well as the peace which coexisted with it.
The “interplay” mentioned also recalls Gallwey’s description of how the sight of each other at Calvary caused wave upon wave of further sorrow in the hearts of Christ and his mother:
“St. Bernard figures to himself two seas, to represent these two Hearts of Jesus and of Mary. The Heart of our Lord, he says, overflows, and the overflow pours into the heart of His Mother. Her heart becomes full, too full, much too full, and the great overflow pours back into the Heart of her Son.”17
Thus Our Lady’s positive consent at Calvary – free, conscious, and in union with the will of her Son to consummate his sacrifice – must have caused her even more sorrow than simply witnessing her Son’s Passion.
All this casts Our Lady of Sorrows in an altogether different light. She is not simply the most pitiable mother, watching her Son suffer: she is the most zealous, committed and loyal of all his followers. But this zeal has nothing to do with coldness towards his suffering: it is not cold, but resolute, constant and steely. This zeal itself increased her own sorrows, and provided her with new sufferings to which she could give further consent and employ in the service of God.
It is through this incomparable, resolute zeal that she, along with her “Seed,” crushed the serpent’s head. We should remember that this Woman was foreshadowed by Jahel, who hammered a tent-peg into the head of Sisera, and Judith, who cut of the head of Holofernes. Could anyone hate sin and the reign of Satan with a more perfect hatred than she who was immaculately conceived? Could anyone have more zeal for the redemption than her?
This is why we invoke her as she who has destroyed all heresies throughout the world – for she also hates heresy more than anyone else – it is why the Byzantine tradition acclaims her as the Victorious Leader of Triumphant Hosts.
This is why the Church rightly honours her as Co-Redemptrix: not as an equal to the Redeemer, but as one who, in perfect union with him, consented to and participated in his redeeming sacrifice. In offering him to the Father, she united herself to his own offering, and offered herself with him.
This cannot be said of any other human being.
We honour Our Lady of Sorrows not only as one who suffered, but as the one who chose to suffer with Christ, for our sake. In so doing, she shows us how to unite our own sufferings to Christ’s – and how to desire the will of God, even when it costs us everything.
Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
Be Thy Mother my defence,
Be Thy Cross my victory.
NB: Following the publication of this article, we have found many more beautiful texts on this topic, including from the Popes. These will be organised and published in a subsequent article in due course.
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Cf. Gallwey, 346.
If, per impossible, we are to assume that she did not already know all this, it is inconceivable that Our Lord would not have told her. As Fr Gallwey writes:
[I]n those hours of blessedness which they spent together at Nazareth, the Divine Child was ever perfecting more and more her supereminent knowledge of Him. He Who said of old: Can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? had much more vividly imprinted on His Heart this thought: Can I hide from My Blessed Mother any of the things that are to come to her and to Me?
“As she is My Eve, and My helpmate, is it well, is it right for Me to be alone through My long Passion of foreknowledge? Can I eat My morsel and drink My chalice alone for so many years and not share with her? It is impossible. This may not be.”
Fr Peter Gallwey SJ, The Watches of the Sacred Passion, Vol. II, 127-8
Ibid., 140
Ibid., 362
Ibid., 369
Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Friday of Passion Week.
Ibid.
Ibid.
STS IIIA, n. 189, pp 465-6.
Mary of Agreda, Mystical City of God, The Transfixion, Book VI, Chapter XXII, n. 664. In the New English Edition, https://www.neemcog.com/index_files/6TransfixionChXXII_nee.pdf
Fr Henry James Coleridge, The Mother of the King, p 371-2.
Ibid., 440-1
Ibid., 440-1
Fr Luis de la Palma, The History of the Sacred Passion, Burns and Oates, London, 1872. pp 390-3
W.G. Ward, The Condemnation of Pope Honorius, p 48. Ward also considers this “hypothetical act of the will” to be the explanation to any difficulties arising from Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Gallwey, 347-8
Besides various popes & saints having called Mary co-Redemptrix, several approved mystics, e.g. St Bridget of Sweden & Ven. Maria of Agreda received the revelation that Mary asked God to be able to suffer in her soul all that Jesus suffered in His Body & it was granted, She being miraculously preserved from dying while suffering immeasurably.
Fatima prayer taught by the angel: "...and by the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus AND the Immaculate Heart of Mary [not just "through"], I beg the conversion of poor sinners."
Deo gratias and thank you very much this beautiful contemplation! May God bless you richly for it!