Quotes from 10 Mystics That Help Us Meditate on Mary’s Sorrows

by Alexis M. Lepicier, OSM
translated by Marge Radford

(Winter, 2017)

What good can come from our meditating on the sorrows of the mother of God and her Most Holy Son?

St. Alexis Faconeri (+1310), one of the seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order. A 14th century historian cites him as having said these memorable words:

“The spirit of our foundation and order is to meditate often, or better still continually, on the sorrows of the Most Holy Mother of God, leaving no stone unturned to make the rest of the world meditate also. . . . The Most Holy Virgin is waiting for us not only to move our hearts to sympathy for her in her sorrows, but to go much further: not add to them by offending God; that is to say, she wants us to fear God and be free from sin. . . so that we may get everyone else to do the same. . . in order that the whole world may become holy through us. . . by meditating, and getting others to meditate with feeling, on the sorrows of the most afflicted Mother of God and those of her Most Holy Son. . .”

Jean Tauler (+1361), famous Dominican preacher, writer and mystic gives us, among other things, the following passage:

“You (Mary) stand face to face with the cross, gazing up at the fruit of life, so that through the violence of your own sufferings you are able to share in the gaining of man’s redemption, just as man was lost by Eve looking up at the forbidden tree, inflaming her desire for its fruit of death. . .”

And again he says:

“Jesus offered Himself freely for the salva­tion of all men: so too. . . the most sweet and gentle Mary offered her Son for the salva­tion of the whole human race, preferring to be deprived of Him Who was her entire joy and consolation, rather than oppose in any way the redemption of mankind.”

How can the Stations of the Cross help us appreciate Mary’s Sorrows?

Blessed Henry Suso (+1363). This great mystic, not content with meditating on the Passion, used to enact it for himself alone in the solitude of his monastery. Imagining that one pillar of the cloister was the Garden of Olives, another the house of the High Priest, he would go from one to the other carrying a heavy cross. . . When he returned, he would imagine himself accompanied by the Blessed Virgin, and see her all splashed and covered with the blood of her Son.

You must understand, my child, that tears shed over Me when meditating on My Passion please Me above everything else. Nevertheless, on account of the inexpressible love I bear My Mother, Queen of Heaven, the contemplation of all the sorrows she had to bear throughout My Passion pleases Me even more…

It is very probable that Suso was the first person to have the idea of what very much later became known as the Way of the Cross. The following is taken from a transla­tion of a chapter in the book Eternal Wis­dom, entitled “His Unutterable Suffering.”

“. . . In what mortal agony I saw my beloved hanging from the Cross. . . Then my heart died within me, and my courage died too. . . I looked up at Him, and I could do nothing for my poor Child. I looked down and saw those who had treated Him so cruelly! My heart was flayed, my voice scarcely audible. . . Recovering a little, however,. . . I said to Him moaning, “O! my Child, my heart’s mirror of joy, in which I have so often happily contemplated You, how is it I see You now so mournful before my eyes!  Ah! my treasure, my all, take me with You! Oh! if only I could die for You, and suffer the bitterness of this death in Your place! Then He told me that humanity could not be saved in any other way, and that He would arise the third day and appear to me and the disciples. “Woman,” He said to me, “do not weep. My most beautiful Mother, I will never leave you again.” Then He consoled me lovingly, and gave me into the keeping of the well beloved disciple, who was stand­ing sorrowfully by. These words penetrated my heart so painfully and so deeply that it was transpierced, as if by a steel sword, and my soul with it; and even the hard-hearted people standing around and looking on were filled with pity for me. I stretched up my arms, as if to kiss my beloved Son, but I was not allowed to do even this.”

How did the blessed virgin Mary have the courage to bear her sufferings?

St. Bridget (+1373). The revelations of St. Bridget contain many pages referring to Mary, divine confidences which refer to her earthly joys and sorrows and her heavenly triumphs and magnificence:

“I am always looking at the people in the world to see if there are any who will com­fort me in my sorrow, but I find so very few who think of my troubles and sufferings. But you my child are not one of those who abandon me. . .

“I want you to know, my daughter, that since the day Jesus was presented in the Temple, my soul has been pierced by six swords. Every time I wrapped His hands and His feet in a blanket, my soul wrenched with pain because I was already thinking of the Crucifixion. I thought I could hear all the lies and injuries people would offer Him, and the traps they would lay for Him. I was so broken with grief I thought I would die. But during all this, by the help of Divine mercy, the pain gradually grew less, and I found I had the courage to bear it. I seemed to foresee my Son bound, beaten and nailed to the Cross. This was so terrible I thought I would faint, but I found I could stand without difficulty and suffer in silence. It was akin to what state I attained later, when I helped the disciples take my Son’s body down from the cross, and wrap Him in linen before laying Him in the sepulchre. My fifth suffering came from my desire to rejoin my Son after His Ascension, and my long sojourn on earth only increased my grief. But one last sorrow tore my heart, and that was seeing the impla­cable persecutions that were carried out against the disciples and the apostles. I was always so afraid they would succumb to the discourage­ment, and so be overcome by their enemies. But that which saddened me above all was to see the way in which my Son’s teachings were opposed and contradicted.”

(Mary then leads Bridget to Cal­vary:)

“. . .When the last preparations for putting the Body in the tomb were completed, an unutterable sadness pierced my soul. I trembled like a leaf. The pain made me gasp for breath. At the same time I felt a great wave of joy surge over me, knowing that in spite of all this, He was no longer dead, and His triumph was at hand. It was an extraor­dinary mixture of pain and joy. However, once Jesus was in the sepulchre, two hearts were in that tomb, for where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.”

What part did Mary’s suffering play in mankind’s redemption?

St. Catherine of Siena, O.P. (+1380) We find in the letters of this great saint and profoundly mystical soul, the account of a striking analogy between Mother and Son:

“. . . The Son was wounded in the flesh, so was the Mother because it was her flesh too. . . The Son took the form of a human body, but the Mother, like a hot candle, took the imprint of her love and desire for our salvation, from the hammer of the Holy Spirit. The Mother had harbored the burn­ing soul of the Son, Who had been wounded and beaten by the will of the Father, and, like a tree that has been grafted, she too had been wounded by the sword of hate and of love. . . . She not only sacrificed the love of her son, but to such a degree that she herself served as the ladder whereby He climbed on to the Cross. So it is not surprising that the love of our salvation wounded her like an arrow. . .“

And she says elsewhere:

“Mary, you are the Redemptrix of the whole human race, for it is your flesh that suffered in Christ for the redemption of the world; Christ redeemed us by His Passion, you by the pain of your body and soul.”

Thomas a Kempis (+1471). Here is a beautiful canticle, “The Act of Consecra­tion of a Devout Soul to the Blessed Virgin Mary,” which Dom Wilmart considers, for a number of reasons, the first piece of mysti­cal writing to come out of the 15th century:

“There at the foot of the Cross, sadly sits the Mother of God cradling Jesus on her pure breast, crying bitterly over the shape­less face of her Son.

“She puts her mouth piously to the red wounds of her Jesus, kissing them, and enfolding Him in her arms.

“O Mary, dark red rose, lily white, sweet, good, and full of love, lull your Son. This Son you so joyously bore to the song of angels, you now receive from the Cross into agonized arms.

“Have pity, O faithful soul, for Christ and His Mother, if you wish to rejoice forever with them in Heaven.

“Jesus, Son of God, have pity on me, through the prayers of thy holy Mother.

“Save me, I beg Thee, by the holy Cross, and bring me to the true light of Heaven.

“Thou, Who promised Paradise to the penitent thief, pardon me, who too am guilty, for Thou has redeemed me with Thy blood.

“Daughters of Jerusalem, come and see, turn to the Crucified and comfort Him.”

Blessed Veronica Nigroni de Binasco (+1479). Our Lord appeared to her one day, and said these remarkable words:

“You must understand, my child, that tears shed over Me when medi­tating on My Passion please Me above everything else. Neverthe­less, on account of the inexpressible love I bear My Mother, Queen of Heaven, the contemplation of all the sorrows she had to bear throughout My Passion pleases Me even more…”

Did the Blessed Virgin endure bodily sufferings?

St. Therese of the Child Jesus (+1897). It is not possible, there­fore, that this soul, whose life was a holocaust, could have failed to draw courage from the Queen of Martyrs. Her writings have not said much about this, but here is a faint echo:

“. . . When I looked at the Blessed Virgin this evening, I realized that not only had she suffered in soul, but in body also. She suffered so much in her travels — from cold, from heat, from fatigue. . . Yes! She really knew what it was to suffer. . . “

Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity (+1906). This holy imitator of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and like her, a flower of Carmel who died at an early age, left among her writings the following moving account of the mysti­cal aspirations of a soul lost in God, filling up here on earth with the Co-Redemptrix, that which was wanting in the Passion of Christ:

“. . . After Jesus Christ. . . and taking into consideration the difference between finite and Infinite, she (Mary) was the creature who gave most glory to the Holy Trinity. She alone responded fully to the Divine Elections spoken of by the apostle. She was always pure, immaculate and irreproach­able in the eyes of the Thrice Holy God. . .This Queen of Virgins is also Queen of Martyrs, but it was in her soul that she was pierced with the sword, for with her, everything took place there. . .

“How lovely it is to contemplate her during her long martyrdom, remaining so serene, and enveloped in a kind of majesty which breathed forth both strength and mildness at the same time. For she had learned from the Word Himself, how the Father has chosen certain souls as victims, and how He has decided to let them share in His great work of Redemption, ‘For whom He did foreknow, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. . . crucified by love.

“So she stands there at the foot of the Cross, in all her strength and courage, and the voice of her Master says to me, ‘Here is your Mother.’ He gives her to me as my Mother. And, now that He has returned to the Father, He has left me in His place on the Cross, so that I may suffer those things still wanting in His Passion for His Body, which is the Church. And Our Lady is still there, waiting to teach me how to suffer like Him, and to understand the last song of His soul, which none but she, His Mother, has ever understood.

“And when the time comes for me to say, ‘It is finished,’ it will still be she, the Gate of Heaven, who will lead me into the divine forecourts, repeating in an undertone, ‘I rejoiced at the things they said unto me, I will go into the house of the Lord. . .“

Dom Columba Marmion, OSB (+1923). In the collection of his beautiful confer­ences Christ in His Mysteries, he speaks several times of the unspeakable suffering of the Mother of God, but it is above all in Christ the Life of the Soul that he gives this thought:

“. . . Jesus and Mary are inseparable in Christ’s mysteries. . . but it is not a question here of a simply material union. It is with both her heart and her soul that Mary enters into the mysteries of her Son. . . That is why Mary has united us all in her heart, together with that of her Divine Son.

“Christ’s work par excellence is His pas­sion, the holy of holies among His myster­ies; for it was through His bloody death on the Cross that He was able to give divine life to men, and reinstate them in their dignity as the children of God. And God wanted to bring His Mother into this mystery in a very special way, because Mary was so fully united to her Redeemer Son, that she really shared with Him (though still keeping her rank as creature), the glory of having at that moment, given birth to the life of grace.

I am always looking at the people in the world to see if there are any who will comfort me in my sorrow, but I find so very few who think of my troubles and sufferings. But you my child are not one of those who abandon me.

“Let us go to Calvary, where Christ was about to accomplish the work that His Father in Heaven had given Him to do on earth. . . And who do we find at the foot of the Cross at that supreme moment? Mary the Mother of Jesus. . . There she stands, having just renewed the offering of her Son which she had already made when she offered Him in the temple. But this time she offers ‘the blessed fruit of her womb’ to the Eternal Father for the ransom of the whole world.

“Jesus had only a few minutes to live; then the sacrifice would be accomplished, the divine grace given to men. . . He wished to give Mary to us as our Mother. . . Thus, before Jesus died. . . He saw His Mother at the foot of the Cross, plunged in deepest woe, and beside her John, the beloved disci­ple. And Jesus said to His Mother: ‘Woman, behold thy son’; then to the beloved disciple He said: ‘Behold thy Mother,’ St. John rep­resenting us all. It is into our keeping the dying Jesus entrusted His Mother. . .

“So, if Christ became our elder Brother, by borrowing from Mary a human nature like our own. . . What is there so astonish­ing about Jesus, when He was dying, giving us as Mother she, who by grace, was His human Mother?. . .

“Therefore this word, being that of the Word, is all powerful, and had the divine effect of making the heart of John worthy of being Mary’s son, just as, in the heart of Mary, He put a particular tenderness for all those who by grace have become brothers of Jesus Christ.

“Can we doubt for one instant that, for her part, the Blessed Virgin responded as she did at Nazareth, this time with a silent ‘fiat,’ but one equally full of love, humility and obedience, or that the readiness and fullness of her will flowed with that of Jesus in the accomplishment of her Divine Son’s supreme wish?”

–Taken from the Reign of Mary Quarterly Magazine, Issue 163