Today, 15
September, is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Yesterday,
we meditated on the cross, and we arrive today at the effects of that cross,
not just on Jesus, but on his mother.
Today is
the day that Christians remember that Mary was a mother- the same mother of the
Christmas story. But today, we come face
to face, not with a new mother, with the mixture of joy, relief, hopes,
promise, responsibility, and perhaps even the apprehensions of every new mum.
That is gone.
Today, there is only hysteria, blood, death, and grief;
Endless,
relentless grief…
Two
reflections have come out of devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows; the most common
is a Catholic reflection on the nature of suffering and its intrinsic benefits
to the human soul. Reflecting on suffering and grief, both our own and Christ’s,
so says this line of thought, build and perfect us and bring us closer to
Christ.
I
understand where this is coming from, but it worries me, in that I think it
runs the risk of making grief and pain a spiritual discipline or a theological
abstraction.
There is,
of course, also a socially conscious reflection that draws attention to Mary being a mother of a man
tortured to death in public after an unfair trial by an oppressive regime, and
that this state of affairs continues in many parts of the world today. Mary is seen as a participant in that struggle, in solidarity with the suffering.
It’s a
credible and necessary reflection- certainly more so than the first example-
and to a large degree, I embrace it. How could I not, with the theological work
I do?
But these
days, I’m more cautious about it.
I’m afraid
it might obscure Mary’s personal grief and loss…
The kind of personal grief and
loss that we will actually encounter in this life...
Mary's grief was real and personal, and anyone who
has experienced grief and loss-
the death of a loved one;
a catastrophic
illness;
the end of a relationship;
a friend or family member caught in
addiction-
can relate to accounts of Mary’s grief.
Grief is
more than sadness, a bad mood, or a frustration of plans.
Grief feels
like a cancer that attacks a person’s ability to hope.
Grief is
like steel, like a knife- hard, sharp, and cold, scraping at the rib cage,
trying to get at the heart…
Anyone who
has grieved- truly grieved- will be able to relate to C.S Lewis’ description of
his own grief at the death of his wife, Joy:
No one ever told me that grief felt so much
like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same
fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep
swallowing…
There are moments, most unexpectedly, when
something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, after
all. Love is not the whole of a man’s life. I was happy before I met Joy. I’ve
plenty of what are called ‘resources’. People get over things. Come, I shan’t
do so badly. One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little
to be making a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all
this ‘common-sense’ vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace…
I not only live each endless day in grief, but
live each day thinking about living each day in grief…
The act of living is different all through. Her
absence is like the sky, spread over everything…
Rarely have
modern Christians engaged with grief as lucidly and starkly as Lewis did in these texts. It was
not an abstract theological exercise but a seemingly-relentless, ever-present condition of the
heart, head, and body...
where Jesus says in the Gospel text, if we need to be reminded, is the setting for our
love of God...
To not
grieve is to not be human.
Our Lady of
Sorrows is Mary at this moment of human grief, real and ongoing.
We don’t
know if Mary ever got over her grief, moved on from the horrific loss by the death
of her son, but the terms ‘got over’ and ‘moved on’ are, in themselves, callous
and offensive, implying that the best course for grieving people is to allow deep
and delicate parts of their psyches to go numb...
I believe
Mary functioned.
She lived.
John, one
of Jesus’ closest friends, looked after her for the rest of her life.
Perhaps,
over time, John became like a son to her…
‘Like’ a son…
Acts 1 and
2 relate that Mary remained with the disciples, and that she was present at
Pentecost.
Perhaps
that encounter with the Holy Spirit of God was strength and comfort to her…
'Strength'... 'Comfort'...
We can only
speculate, and grieving people can indeed, if not ‘move on’, then move forward...
But over
the centuries, Christians have given us this picture of Mary in the midst of grief;
Our Lady of Not Coping Well At All;
Our Lady of Falling Apart;
Our Lady of the Ache of Loss;
Our Lady of Not Wanting to Get Up in the Morning
and Dreading the Long Nights;
Our Lady of Painful Memories;
Our Lady of the Panic of Loneliness…
The world
is full of trauma, and people are caught up in it.
The
Christian faith can help us manage the grief that erupts from human existence.
It will not
make it go away;
But it can help make it bearable.
Our Lady of
Sorrows, pray for us…
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