O Heart of Mary, I offer, etc., etc.
Twenty-ninth Day.
What was particularly sorrowful, in this seventh affliction, was the great sense of desertion that Mary felt, as if left by God; her good and adorable Son gone from her sight and buried. The days of the Passion, the death and the burial, must [pg 399] have so exhausted the life of the good Virgin that now she was near giving up the spirit. Every suffering that she had to endure seemed to culminate in this supreme moment. It is the last sword of Simeon's prophecy. No one can describe the sufferings of Mary, and no one can describe the sanctity with which she bore up in all these trials. But, O Simeon, thou didst assert that having seen the Lord, thou wert now ready to leave this world. But this last sorrow did not announce the end to Mary; she was to suffer on for years. There seems to be nothing human or frail in Mary's sufferings. Her character grows upon us, in nobility most exalted, and in patience never wavering. Man shows his feebleness at some time, but Mary seemed to grow stronger, purer, and more beautiful.
Prayer.
O Heart of Mary, I offer, etc., etc.
Thirtieth Day.
What lessons are we to learn from this seventh sorrow of Mary, the culmination of all her troubles and trials? One is that we should love God and be faithful to Him, with a more unselfish attachment. Mary left the tomb in which Our Lord was hidden from her sight without a murmur, resigned to the will of God. She might have persuaded herself that she should remain there, but God desired it otherwise, and she departed from the place which held her all. It is hard, but true, that God's will must be done in everything. Another lesson from the contemplation of the sorrow caused [pg 400] by the separation from Our Lord was the bitterness of the separation. Oh, how bitter it is to be away from Jesus! Is there anything to make up for that loss? Terrible is the darkness of the hour when Christ is absent. It is a hell upon earth. And thus we have made a history of the life of Mary, and have followed her through her wearisome pain, until now we leave her ripe for heaven. The time has come in which God will call her to an eternity of honor and glory.
Prayer.