Word to the Wise
Monday, September 15, 2014 - Sept. 15 - Our Lady of Sorrows
[Heb 5:7-9; [opt. Sequence: Stabat Mater]; John 19:25-27 or Luke 2:33-35,710]Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalen. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved he said to his mother, "Woman behold, your son." then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. [John]
I think I will get a nod of memory from many of the Beloved Congregation when I quote from the first line of the "Sequence" that is sung on this feast day: "At the cros her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesus to the last...." We sang that hymn as school children, attending the Stations of the Cross in Lent! The feast of the Sorrowful Mother [Our Lady of Sorrows] is a recognitioin not only of the personal reaction of jesus mother to his gruesome death, but our own reaction as well. The scene has captured tha attention and imagination of the Christian community since the very earliest days of the faith.
Theologians have spent a lot of time comparing the scene in John's gospel with those in the other three. The magisterial commentary of Fr. Raymond Brown, S.S., on the Gospel of John interprets the scene primarily in terms of Jesus' completing his work by making his own mother the mother of his disciple, which makes her really the mother of the Church and a continung witness to his "work." I'll leave it at that!
We can visit the secene personally through imagination or we can reflect on it with centuries of tradition. Here it is not the cros or the crucifixion, but the human response that matters. What is yours? AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
100 ms
4
