Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Celebrate today the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Our Lady of Sorrows, we say of sorrows,
Our Lady of Sorrows was a part of her life,
a major part of her life,
one of, I could say, a possession of hers.
She was acquainted with sufferings,
as we say of our Lord.
He was a man of sorrows.
Our Lady was a woman of sorrows as a creature.
And this woman, this lady, is our mother.
And so this personalizes these sorrows
of her that becomes something intimate to us,
something that affects us.
Of course, the cause of her sorrows were our sins,
and she was suffering for our sake.
So when we reflect on the sorrows of Our Lady,
we can reflect on her, the intensity of her sorrows.
Of course, we all have sorrows in our life,
and some of us have many sorrows and deep sorrows.
And if we look at the martyrs,
they had many intense, intense sorrows.
And some saints were victims
and were chosen by God to suffer more than others for others.
And so we could think of Our Lady
and trying to relate to her in that sense
and the sorrows that we have
or the sorrows that we see other people suffer.
But this is, this doesn't,
give us really a true understanding of her sorrows.
Her sorrows were enormous,
were something beyond our understanding
because the saints tell us,
the doctors of the church tell us that her,
she's the queen of martyrs,
and that she suffered more than all the martyrs taken together.
And how to understand that is beyond our understandings.
Even, even,
even the sufferings of some of the saints
and some of the martyrs is hard for us to understand
how they endured it.
And so how can we understand how Our Lady suffered
more than all of the martyrs taken together
with all the human beings that have lived
from the beginning to the end of the world?
How can we understand that?
And yet it is the teaching of the saints that this is true.
And while we can understand it too, you know,
to a certain extent intellectually,
that she is to be the mother of all human beings.
So she had to embrace all of humanity,
everyone from the beginning of time to the end,
all of humanity.
She had to be a mother to all of us.
St. Alphonsus speaks of Our Lady as being the mother
in two ways, that she gave birth to Jesus,
and he is the head of the human race.
He is the head of the body of Christ.
And so she's,
she's the mother of all of us in that way.
But she's the mother also in sorrows,
because of her sorrows,
because those are her labor pains to give birth to,
to all of us.
And so she had to suffer that intensity
that she gave birth to all of us,
to give birth to all of us and those labor pains,
and to, and also because she is the co-edemptrix
of the human race, she had to pay for our sins.
She had to pay for our sins.
And to give birth to us into eternal life,
she had to pay for all of our sins as co-edemptrix,
and as she could in a subordinate way to our,
to our Lord.
So we can understand it in that sense,
that she is a co-edemptrix and that she is our,
the mother of everyone.
So she had to suffer.
She had to suffer a lot.
She had to suffer as we speak of our Lord as being made perfect
in sufferings.
It was fitting that our Lord was made perfect through suffering.
So it was fitting that Our Lady as our mother and queen
be made perfect in her humanity through sufferings.
So we reflect on that, that intensity of Our Lady
and try to grasp it in whatever way we can.
Her intense sufferings and also the duration of her suffering.
So we reflect on that, that intensity of Our Lady and try to grasp it in whatever way we can.
Her intense sufferings and also the duration of her suffering.
So we reflect on that, that intensity of Our Lady and try to grasp it in whatever way we can.
Her intense sufferings and also the duration of her suffering.
So we reflect on that, that intensity of Our Lady and try to grasp it in whatever way we can.
Not just from the incarnation on, which we can relate to perhaps more,
Not just from the incarnation on, which we can relate to perhaps more,
Not just from the incarnation on, which we can relate to perhaps more,
but because of the sensitivity of her heart,
because of her mother, motherly heart,
that had to embrace all of humanity.
It had to be extremely sensitive.
And that sorrow, and that sensitivity is for all of us
And that sorrow, and that sensitivity is for all of us
as human beings who are her children but it's also for God for God for her to be able to love God
she sort of personifies creation and so the love of our lady is to represent all of creation
to return that love to God love for God she is to show all of humanity how to love God
and so she had to have a sensitive heart for us as her children and also for God
and that sensitivity is something we can understand at least somewhat intellectually
and so because of that sensitivity she which she had from the beginning of her conception
she suffered in a motherly way for all of creation
she had sympathy for all of us
of us creatures before she knew that she was to be the mother of God. She had sympathy and
compassion on all of us creatures who were prevented from entering heaven because of our
sins. We needed a redeemer. We needed to be freed from our slavery to Satan and sin
and from our miseries. She had compassion and that caused her suffering and the sins that we
were offending God by caused her immense sufferings. So she suffered from the beginning
of her conception throughout her life, suffering for the offenses that we've committed against God
and suffering for us. And then her sufferings were intensified further when she became the
mother of God and she, the Messiah, the son of God, was her personal son. So the sufferings of Jesus
became much more intense. She was a mother of God. She was a mother of God. She was a mother of God.
Much, much more personal to her. And so as she was carrying Jesus in her womb and in her arms and
lived with him through his childhood and all the way to his passion and death, she
had before her eyes the sufferings that our Lord would undergo, which she knew very keenly because
of her keen understanding of scripture. And those, that's,
that's suffering of her heart, that sort of sorrow, which began, uh, at her, uh, the,
the incarnation and more at the, uh, uh, um, prophecy of Simeon, uh, that the sort of sorrow
would pierce her heart that grew and became stronger and more intense and more painful,
uh, as the time came closer to the passion of, of our Lord. So we relate to that in that way,
uh, of her, her sufferings there. And we think of the cause of her sufferings, the remote cause
being our, our sins, uh, which she had to suffer for as co-edemptrix, as our mother, our sins,
the immensity of our sins, the gravity of our sins came upon her as far as she could suffer
as a human being, uh, and that God, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
God enabled her to, to suffer. And, uh, uh, so the remote cause being, being our sins,
but then the more proximate cause, the more immediate cause being her son, Jesus, uh, her
Jesus before her very eyes, that, that she was, that Jesus was the cause of her intense sufferings
and her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her,
her immense love for Jesus and the immense, the immense lovableness of Jesus, who was her
personal, her personal son and the son of God and how much she loved her son, her personal son,
and how much she loved God too with the, with the, the, the sensitive heart that she, she had,
uh, and just witnessing, witnessing, uh, the sufferings of Jesus at his passion,
but even witnessing it, uh, throughout her life as she knew,
it was going to come and it was going to happen. So as we reflect on these sufferings of, of Our
Lady, we, uh, we need to use that, uh, to help us to love Our Lady more, to be compassionate to Our
Lady, uh, for Our Lady, to, to have a more and more intense love for her, affection for Our Lady
and a thankfulness and a gratitude to her for her sufferings that she endured,
for our sake, for my sake, for yours, to, uh, purchase for us the kingdom of heaven,
to pay the price for our sins. Our Lady paid the price. She took the, she took the wounds,
she took the stab wounds, we could say the sword wounds of our sins on her heart, and that
requires a return on our behalf, a return of love for her, thankfulness, gratitude,
but also especially,
a return of, uh, not offending Our Lord, not offending Our Lady, not offending our, our mother.
And so let us, uh, give that return to Our Lady and, and strive to grow more in love for her as we
reflect on her, what she has done for us. Praise be Jesus and Mary.
May God bless you all.