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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: The Burial of Jesus
March 10
The Seventh Dolor: The Burial of Jesus
From the beginning of the victim’s torture until after his death, crucifixion was a nasty and brutal affair. It was rare that the criminal was buried after he died. Most typically, the body was left to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. One exception, however, applied to Jews. Because their religious law required a person accused of a capital offense to be buried on the same day as his death (see Deut. 21: 22-23), the Romans permitted the body to be removed for burial – usually for a price. Since death from crucifixion could take up to three days, this usually required a hastening of the dying process. Soldiers would often kindle a fire under the crucified, or let hungry beasts attack them, or break their bones with an iron mallet to induce suffocation. Fortunately for Our Lord, none of this was necessary thereby fulfilling Scripture (Exodus 12:46).
For Reflection:
Read the account of Jesus’ burial in Mark 15: 42-47. What parallels do you see between it and today’s GraceLine? Though the Blessed Mother is not specifically mentioned, it was customary for the family members of the deceased to prepare the body for burial and then proceed to the burial site in a procession of lamentation and mourning. Picture Our Lady performing these last acts of love for her Son. What does Mary do? What words come to mind to describe the quality of her actions? What thoughts do you think played at her memory? What emotions did she experience? Journal your reflections.
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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: Participate in the Cross
March 9
“No one can suggest that God did not love the Blessed Virgin. Nevertheless, He did not exempt her for Calvary, or from making her participate in the Cross to a fuller extent than anyone else in the world except her Son. It would be foolish – to think that if God really loves us, as He does, He will exempt us from the Cross, the sign of the Christian.”
-Federico Suarez
For Reflection:
Christian thinking has always posited the Cross as the consummate sign of victory. We even celebrate a feast day in celebration of it – September 14, The Triumph of the Cross. How was Calvary and the Cross, Jesus's greatest triumph? Mary’s? How does the Cross, then, speak of God’s love for us -- first, in reception of the fruits it has gained for us; and second, in the entrustment of the cross we carry? To what extent does this insight lighten the burden?
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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: Her union with her Son and His sacrifice
March 8
To Mary: At the Thirteenth Station
You are the priest tonight:
The paten of your lap holds sacrifice.
You are the priest tonight,
Offering Peace and its price.
Star candles burn palely bright;
John is your faithful acolyte.
You are the priest tonight.
-Raymond Roseliep
M. Thérèse. I Sing of a Maiden: The Mary Book of Verse.
New York: Macmillan, 1947.
For Reflection:
How is this scene almost para- liturgical? Read Paragraphs, 783 and 1546 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in light of the poem. Do you think the description of Mary as priest is an apt one? What deeper insights does this give you into the mystery of Mary, her union with her Son and His sacrifice, and the suffering they shared in common?
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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: Jesus Is Taken Down From the Cross
March 7
The Sixth Dolor: Jesus Is Taken Down From the Cross
Tradition has it that Jesus’ body was placed in His mother’s arms after he was taken down from the Cross. This touching scene became the subject of artistic renderings around 1300, with the most famous of all being Michelangelo’s sculpture in white marble. The Pieta has been housed in St. Peter’s Basilica since the early 18th Century.
For Reflection:
Michaelangelo’s sculpture captures in marble – a deepening insight into the mystery of Mary, Virgin and Mother, whose Son was her Savior and her God, and Whose suffering was mystically her own.
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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: Joy that stands the test of pain
March 6
“Only the joy that stands the test of pain and is stronger than afflictions is authentic.”
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
(Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)
For Reflection:
Consider the paradox of joy and pain co-existing. What joy might Mary have been experiencing at the foot of the Cross even in the midst of her great suffering? How might this joy help her to stand there? Recall a time when you were experiencing a suffering marked with an underlying joy. How did it help you to stand there – actually or metaphorically? Can you identify the joy in her current sorrow – what is it? How does it help you to stand?
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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: Mary remained at the foot of the Cross
March 5
“When the hour came the disciples fled, but Mary remained at the foot of the Cross, near her Son’ she was prepared, she was ready for anything,
even this.”
- Federico Suarez
For Reflection:
In light of Matthew 7:14, how did the narrow way prepare Mary For Golgotha? How has each contradiction and sorrow of your life prepared you for the next? With a supernatural outlook, see how these sufferings and difficulties have formed the path of your own Via Dolorosa. Giving your fiat at the foot of this, your cross, unite them to the Cross of Our Lord. Journal your insights.
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Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: The chalice with the Lord
March 4
“To drink the chalice with the Lord (Mt. 20:21) means dying to one’s natural self – both in the sensitive and in the spiritual part. Only in this way can one enter the narrow way.”
-St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
For Reflection:
Recall again that Scripture and Tradition tell us that Mary stood at the foot of the Cross. What is the significance of this stance and what does it indicate about Mary? How was this a “dying to one’s natural self,” in the sense and emotions as well as in the spirit? Read Matthew 7:14. Mary’s fiat gained was her gate to the narrow way, a way she followed all her life. What is your current sorrow? How can it be a narrow way for you?
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Victory of the Martyrs
In January, I picked up my old, dusty, worn-out copy of the book, Victories of the Early Martyrs by St. Alphonsus Liguori and have been so inspired by the faith and zeal of our brothers and sisters who lived in the earliest centuries of the Church.
This Saturday is the Feast of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, both Roman martyrs. Their story was recorded by Perpetua's own hand in an account known as The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity.
Lenten Journey Through the Sorrows of Mary: The Crucifixion
March 3
The Fifth Dolor: The Crucifixion
In a garden Mary stood when Springtime’s radiant beauty
Wrapped the world in sunlight and filled her heart with joy.
Down the garden-path there ran a slender little Figure
Bringing her a gift of love - He, her God, her Boy!
Mary opened wide her arms to take her sheaf of lilies:
"Mother!" called her little Son, and never had she heard
In the angel’s message, in brooklet, or in bird-song,
Music half so lovely as that one tender word.
On a hill-top Mary stood one sadder, later Springtime.
All the earth was wrapped in gloom beneath that
blood-stained Cross;
Memories thronged about her, memories of His Childhood,
Adding to her loneliness, her pain, her sense of loss.
Mary opened wide her arms but His were nailed securely
"Mother!" breathed her dying Son, and never had she heard
In her sword-pierced heart that knew the very depths of sorrow
Anything approaching the pathos of that word.
"Mother! Mother Mary!" a million hearts are calling,
"Open wide again those arms, and in their warm embrace,
Take the children Jesus gave you on that darkened hill-top
When He named you Mother of the sin-stained human race."
-Sr. Maryanna. Robert, Cyril. Our Lady’s Praise in Poetry. Poughkeepsie, New York: Marist Press, 1944. From the Mary Pages, University of Dayton.
For Reflection:
Today’s poem gives one person’s reflections on what Mary could have been thinking and feeling as she watched her Son die. What aspect of this poem helps you to enter most deeply into Mary’s fifth dolor? Why do you think it touches you so?
Prayerfully read St. John’s account of the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (19:16-30). Stand beneath the cross with Our Lady. What are you thinking and experiencing in that moment? How do you show solidarity with Our Lady? She with you? What suffering of your own life do you seek to unite to hers?
If you enjoy Daily Gracelines, please prayerfully consider making a donation to support and sustain our apostolate so that we may continue to provide this and all of our resources designed to nourish and grow your Catholic faith. DONATE
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