Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

 Lectionary: 444/639

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother

and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,

and Mary Magdalene.

Susan Boyle, among many others, has sang Keith Richard's lullaby to his son, 

Wild horses couldn't drag me away

Wild, wild horses couldn't drag me away.

The romantic song, like all romantic songs, poetry, and music expresses our human longing for God, even when they seem to be about something else. As Saint Augustine prayed, "Our hearts are restless till we rest in thee!"  

The song surely applies to Mary's presence on Calvary. No Roman soldiers, Jewish mob, or family ties could prevent her from standing on Calvary as her son died. In her heart she would die with her son and be raised up with an entirely new family, represented by the Lord's "Beloved Disciple." 

Nor can wild horses prevent her from beholding her Son in every son and daughter who comes to her. We belong to her as surely as she belongs to us. 

Jesus alluded to the new family he gives us in the fourteenth chapter of Saint Luke' gospel:

Great crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and addressed them, “If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." (25-27)

and in Mark 3:  

“Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (34-35)

To survive in our time, our human relations must be founderd in the family the Lord gives us. As Saint Francis said, "The Lord gave me brothers." (And Clare and her disciples were his sisters.) "The family is, so to speak, the domestic church." (Lumen Gentium, paragraph 11)

We look to the New Testament to teach us what marriage and family really mean. 

• To be real, a married couple must look like the marriage of God and his people, of Jesus and his Church. They trust and rely on each other. 
• Parents look to God the Father for the Spirit who authorizes their right to discipline their children; and these disciples learn self-discipline and wisdom by their instruction, stories, and humility. 
• Biological brothers and sisters look to the New Testament, where those find brother and sister describing the relations of men and women in the Church. With God's inspiration, biological kin become disciples of Jesus, and more worthy of one another's trust. 
• The dignity of married couples, parents, and siblings radiates the aura of God's presence. 
• And even their occasional betrayals, like those that happen in every human society, can be transformed by the Cross as the family shares practices of atonement and penance. They learn and learn again that God is our unity, and God's glory is our purpose. They've no time for carrying grudges, not even overnight.
• Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil. Ephesians 4:26

Under the influence of that Spirit which brought Mary to Calvary, wild horses cannot tear them apart.