Today as we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, or the Seven Dolores of Our Blessed
Lady, we first have to go back to the time when our Lord was born, and the prophet Simeon
told Our Blessed Lady that a sword of sorrow would pierce her heart.
And that's exactly what we see happening today, it's what we're commemorating, as yesterday
we commemorated the exaltation of the cross, and we see that standing at the cross of our
Lord was his mother.
And at that point, that sword, that spiritual sword, pierced her immaculate heart.
But we also have to be able to look at this in a different way.
We see the fulfillment of not only what Simeon spoke,
but we see the fulfillment of everything
to which our Blessed Lady had said yes.
Again, we go back, we know that our Blessed Lady
certainly knew the scriptures well.
She knew, therefore, when she said yes to the angel,
exactly what that was going to entail.
Not exactly in the sense that she didn't know the details
But she knew that her son was going to come into this world to die and she said yes to that
She said yes to the fact that she knew that he was going to die for our sins
She said yes knowing that her son was going to be God and that he was going to be put to death
for us and because of us and still she said yes because she recognized how much
God loved us that he would do this and we recognized too how much our Blessed
Lady would love us that she would do this
And now we move forward then to the beginning of our Lord's public life.
Having spent that entire time with our Blessed Lady throughout His early life up till He was 30,
He begins His public life.
And the very first thing that happens is that our Lady has to say,
do whatever He tells you.
knowing that at that feast, that wedding feast at Cana, that when our Lord said to
his mother, woman what is this to you and to me, when she had told him that they
had run out of wine.
she understood exactly what that meant. If she said yes to this, that meant it was
all beginning. What was going to end on Calvary was now going to begin in
earnest. And you see our Lord's great respect for his mother, that he would not
begin his public work knowing where it was going to end.
And now at the foot of the cross, it was the same.
Obviously he had to go to the cross regardless of anything else.
But there we see right at the foot of the cross is his mother, once again saying yes.
The saints would say that her fiat at the Annunciation
would be completed by her fiat at the foot of the cross.
Even though she didn't actually speak that we know the word fiat,
nonetheless, it means let it be done to me according to thy word.
And so the acceptance of his crucifixion certainly would be piercing her heart.
fact of being given St. John.
would be another piercing of her heart.
Her son is God.
And now, instead of God, she receives the Son who is merely human.
And yet, it's more than that, because we know that that's you and me too.
At least if it was St. John, we could say, well, that's the beloved disciple, and he
never committed a mortal sin in his life, and he's an extraordinarily holy man.
Yeah, the Lord was talking about you and me.
Would that we could say that we were extraordinarily holy?
Would that we could say that we've never committed a mortal sin in our life?
Well, a couple of the kids who are here can probably say that,
but most of the rest of us probably can't.
She gave up her divine Son because she loves you and me that much.
that she was willing to say yes to anything that God asked her.
We can't imagine from a mother's perspective even those of you who are moms we can't imagine the piercing
of her heart that that would have caused, and yet
her willingness to say yes to whatever God asked because of her love.
And then to watch, not only as her son died,
But to watch as a soldier would pierce his sacred heart with his lance.
And once again, her own heart would be pierced through, not physically, but spiritually.
In a pain that would be sharper probably than anything any of us have ever experienced,
and yet it was done purely out of love.
It is in this that we have the fulfillment
of what happened at the Annunciation,
the fulfillment of what happened at the presentation.
the fulfillment of what our lady's life was called to be,
a life united with her son,
giving everything that she had for him,
for his mission as the Redeemer,
giving everything she had therefore for us,
so that we could become the sons and daughters of God.
so that we could actually not exactly be the replacement for her son, but to
become members of her son, so that we could participate in the divine nature
and the sons and daughters that she received then.
while not being God.
participants in the nature of God.
That's what happened on the cross.
That is the mystery of the love of this extraordinary mother.
It brings about our spiritual rebirth, as we have talked about before.
and that spiritual rebirth when she would behold her son and behold her daughters.
was to take on His divine nature through baptism, through reception of Holy Communion.
The mystery of what happened on the cross continues to happen today for us
so that there is not merely a spiritual rebirth.
There is an entire change that happens within us.
start out merely as children of our human parents, and we become children of God.
And becoming children of God means we also become the children of our blessed Lady.
That is what this is all about.
Yeah, once again, we could joke and smile,
but it's true to be able to say,
maybe the biggest sword that she received is us.
Any mother knows that the greatest joys in
her life are her children,
and the greatest sorrows in her life.
There is nothing that pierces a mother's heart more than the pain that's caused by her own children because she loves them that much.
So does our mother.
So maybe it would be a great thing for us today to look at it and say, you know what,
I don't want to pierce her heart any more than I already have.
I don't want to stick another sword in there.
How many I already have.
How many pains that she has endured because of me.
I want to bring now the greatest joy, because if that's the mother's greatest joy from
her children, if I've already caused her the greatest pain, maybe I can at least bring
some joy into her life, into her immaculate heart.
What a wonderful way to look at that.
So, thanks be to Mary that she said yes to the sorrow because she said yes to us.
Yes to the sorrow at the cross, yes to the sorrow that we as her spiritual
children would cause, but that means she also said yes to the joy, the joy that
would come in the resurrection and the glorification of her Son, the joy that
would come in you and I choosing to become saints and once again
ultimately resurrecting and going to heaven.
All of that is the mystery of that immaculate heart,
united to our Lord,
from her fiat at the Annunciation,
to her fiat at the foot of the cross,
and continues to this day in her fiat for you and me.
Let's be children of our mother and say to God,
Fiyatmiki sikunum verbum tuum,
let it be done to me according to thy word.