The glories of Mary

by Saint Alfonso Maria de' Liguori

Now behold Mary actually on her way to Jerusalem to offer her Son; she hastens her steps towards the place of sacrifice, and she herself carries her beloved victim in her arms. She enters the temple, approaches the altar, and there, filled with modesty, humility, and devotion, she presents her Son to the Most High. At this moment St. Simeon, who had received the promise from God that he should not die before seeing the expected Messias, takes the divine child from the hands of the Virgin, and, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, announces to her how much sorrow this sacrifice must cause her, this sacrifice which she was about to make of her Son, with whom must her blessed soul also be sacrificed. Here St. Thomas of Villanova contemplates the holy old man, who, when he had to announce the fatal prophecy to this poor mother, is agitated and silent.[1237] Then the saint considers Mary, who asks: Why, oh Simeon, in the time of so great consolation, are you thus disturbed? “Unde tanta turbatio?” To whom he answers: Oh, noble and holy Virgin, I wished not to announce to thee such bitter tidings, but since the Lord wishes it thus, for thy greater merit, hear what I say to thee.[1238] This infant who now causes thee, and with reason, so much joy, oh God, shall one day bring thee the most cruel suffering that any creature has ever experienced in the world; and this will be when thou shalt see him persecuted by men of every sort, and placed on the earth as the mark of their sneers and derision, even until he is put to death before thy eyes.[1239] Know that after his death there will be many martyrs who, for love of this thy Son, will be tormented and slain; but if their martyrdom will be of the body, thy martyrdom, oh divine mother, will be of the heart.[1240]

Yes, of the heart, for nothing but compassion for the sufferings of this Son so dear could be meant by the sword of sorrow that St. Simeon predicted was to pierce the heart of the mother: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce.”[1241] Already the most holy Virgin, as St. Jerome says, had been enlightened through the divine Scriptures to know the sufferings which the Redeemer was to endure in his life, and still more at the time of his death. She well understood from the prophets, that he was to be betrayed by one of his friends: “Who ate my bread hath greatly supplanted me;”[1242] as David predicted. Abandoned by his disciples: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: “Percute Pastorem, et dispergentur oves.”[1243] Well did she know the insults, spitting, blows, and derision that he was to suffer from the people: “I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them; I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me and spit upon me.”[1244] She knew that he was to become the scandal of men, and the outcast of the lowest of the people: “But I am a worm and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people,”[1245] even to be laden with insults and outrages: “He shall be filled with reproaches.”[1246] She knew that at the end of his life his sacred flesh would be torn and bruised by scourges: “He was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins,”[1247] so that his body would be wholly disfigured by them, become as a leper, all sores: “There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness, and we have thought him, as it were, a leper,”[1248] even till the bones were uncovered: “They have numbered all my bones.”[1249] She knew that he was to be pierced by nails.[1250] That he was to be reputed with the wicked.[1251] And that finally he was to die, hanging on the cross, slain for the salvation of men: “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.”[1252]

Mary, I repeat, already knew all the sufferings that her Son was to endure, but in the above quoted words of St. Simeon: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce,” as the Lord revealed to St. Theresa, all the minute circumstances of the external as well as internal sufferings which her Lord Jesus was to endure in his passion, were made known to her. She consented to all with a firmness which made the angels wonder, and pronounced the sentence that her Son should die, and die by a death so ignominious and painful, in these words: Eternal Father, since thou dost will it, not my will, but thine be done: “Non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat;” I unite mine to thy holy will, and sacrifice to thee this my Son; I am satisfied that he should lose his life for thy glory, and for the salvation of the world. And I also sacrifice to thee my heart; let grief pierce it as much as pleases thee; it suffices to me that thou, oh my God, art glorified and satisfied; not my will, but thine be done. Oh, charity without measure! oh, constancy without example! oh, victory that merits the eternal admiration of heaven and of earth!

And hence Mary, in the passion of Jesus, was silent when he was unjustly accused; she said nothing to Pilate, who was inclined to liberate him, for he had already known his innocence; but she only appeared in public to be present at the great sacrifice, which was to be offered on Calvary. She accompanied him to the place of punishment; she was with him from the first moment he was placed upon the cross: There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother: “Stabat juxta crucem Jesu mater ejus;” until she saw him expire, and the sacrifice was consummated. And all this to complete the offering which she had already made of him to God in the temple.

In order to understand the violence that Mary had to offer herself in making this sacrifice, it would be necessary to comprehend the love which this mother bore to Jesus. Generally speaking, the love of mothers is so tender for their children, that when they are at the point of death, and they are about to lose them, they forget all their faults, their defects, and even the injuries they have received from them, and they suffer an inexpressible grief. And yet the love of those mothers is a love divided among other children, or among other creatures. Mary has one only Son, and he is the most beautiful of all the children of Adam; he is most amiable, for he has all lovable qualities; he is obedient, virtuous, innocent, holy, in one word, he is God. The love of this mother, too, is not divided among other objects; she has centered all her love upon this only Son, neither does she fear loving him to excess, for this her Son is God, who merits an infinite love. And this Son is the victim whom she had voluntarily to offer to death.

Let every one consider, then, how much it must have cost Mary to sacrifice on the cross the life of a Son so amiable, and what strength of mind she must have exercised in this act. Behold the most fortunate of mothers, because she is the mother of a God, but she is at the same time a mother most worthy of compassion, because the most afflicted; being the mother of a Son whom she saw destined to the cross from the day when he was given her for a Son! What mother would accept a son, knowing that afterwards she should lose him by such a painful and infamous death, and that she should be present to see him die? Mary willingly accepted this Son with so hard a condition; and not only accepted him, but offers him herself this day, with her own hands, to death, sacrificing him to the divine justice. St. Bonaventure says, that the blessed Virgin would willingly have taken upon herself the sufferings and death of her Son; but to obey God she made the great offering of the divine life of her beloved Jesus, conquering, but with the greatest grief, all the tenderness of love that she bore him.[1253] Hence it is, that in this offering Mary had to do more violence to herself, and was more generous, than if she had offered herself to suffer all her Son was to suffer. Therefore she surpassed all the martyrs in generosity, for the martyrs offered their own lives; but the Virgin offered the life of her Son, whom she loved and esteemed infinitely more than her own life.

Neither did the suffering of this painful offering end here; rather it commenced here; for from that time forward, through the whole life of her Son, Mary had always before her eyes death, and all the pains he was to suffer in his death. Hence, the more this Son discovered to her how beautiful, graceful, and amiable he was, so much more did the anguish of her heart constantly increase. Ah, afflicted mother! if thou hadst loved thy Son less, or if thy Son had been less lovely, and had loved thee less, thy suffering would certainly have been less in offering him to death. But there never has been, and there never will be, a more loving mother than thou, because there never has been, and never will be, a son more amiable and more loving towards his mother than thy Jesus. Oh God! if we had seen the beauty, the majesty of countenance of that divine child, could we have had the courage to sacrifice his life for our salvation? And thou, oh Mary! who art his mother, and a mother so loving, couldst thou offer thy innocent Son for the salvation of men, to a death more painful and more cruel than any criminal had ever endured on this earth?

Alas! what a fearful scene from that day forward did love continually place before the eyes of Mary, representing to her all the injuries and mockeries which were to be offered to her poor Son! Behold love already representing him to her in his agony in the garden, then torn by scourges, and crowned with thorns in the hall of Pilate, and finally hanging from the infamous wood on Calvary! Behold, oh mother, said love, what a lovely and innocent Son thou hast offered to such sufferings, and to so dreadful a death! And of what avail will it be to thee to rescue him from the hands of Herod, in order to reserve him for so piteous an end?

Thus Mary not only offered her Son to death in the temple, but was offering him up at every moment of her life; for she revealed to St. Bridget, that this grief which St. Simeon announced to her, never left her heart till she was assumed into heaven.[1254] Hence St. Anselm says: Oh Lady, I cannot believe, that with such a sorrow thou wouldst have been able to live one moment, if God himself, who gives life, had not strengthened thee by his divine power.[1255] And St. Bernard affirms, speaking of the great sorrow that Mary endured on this day, that henceforth she suffered a living death, bearing a grief more cruel than death.[1256] She lived, dying at every moment, because grief for the death of her beloved Jesus, which was more cruel than any death, was at every moment assailing her.