To what can I liken or compare you,
O daughter Jerusalem?
What example can I show you for your comfort,
virgin daughter Zion?
For great as the sea is your downfall;
who can heal you?
The Church often contemplates the virtue and blessings of Mary, the Mother of God, on Saturday; and it is well that the feast of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem should fall on Saturday this year. He promoted her title Mother of God when it was still inconceivable to many thoughtful Christian theologians and pastors. He also introduced his own Marian devotion to all future ages.
Today's first reading is taken from the Book of Lamentations, which recounts the overwhelming grief of Jerusalem after Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army had breached its wall, burned its buildings, and deported the citizens who had not been murdered.
The Church has taken words from that tragic account to recall Mary's grief as she witnessed the crucifixion of her Son. Many Pietas describes that enormous sorrow. In the photo here, Mary's sorrow is represented in our shrine in Carey, Ohio -- the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation -- above a corresponding statue of her Son lying in his tomb. Above her head are the words, "Behold and see whether there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow." (I've forgotten the exact phrasing; the reference is to Lamentation 1:12)
The images and inscriptions of the pieta remind us of the holiness of grief. It is too precious to be wasted. But our secular society, so eager to celebrate joy, gladness, happiness, and giddiness, fears grief.
"Laugh and the world laughs with you; grieve, and you grieve alone." People often avoid friends and acquaintances who have recently suffered a severe loss. They cross the street lest they run into them! Other demean grief, calling it a process, and you just have to work through it.
But grief cannot be dismissed so easily. It is not a process, and we do not "get over it." Rather it is a gift that shows us how deeply we love, and roots in our hearts and souls run far deeper than we imagine. Love is painful -- sometimes more painful than we actually feel -- but if we knew how deep it goes and how painful we might avoid it altogether.
Recalls Lord God's words to Eve, "...in pain you shall bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband...."
No sooner had Eve's second son been murdered than "she gave birth to a son whom she called Seth. “God has granted me another offspring in place of Abel,” she said, 'because Cain killed him.'” The mother of all the living would not forget her sons, but neither would she stop loving her foolish husband and giving him more children.
Saint Augustine recalled the poor trade the Lord had offered to Mary from his cross. He told her, "Behold your son!" The Bishop of Hippo understood that she adopted all of us as her children; she became the Mother of all those who live in Christ. But what a poor exchange it was! She had lost her divine Son and received only sinners.
[For] whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
