Blessed feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you all. Mother Church would seem to be telling us something very important by having two days in the liturgical year to celebrate Our Lady of Sorrows. The first is the Seven Sorrows of the BVM, which is a movable feast (the Friday during Passion Week) and the other is September 15th, feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Meditation
Taken from a sermon on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (Sept. 15)
From a Missionary of St. John the Baptist
“When the Lord with the Mother, being moved with mercy towards Her. He said to her, “Weep not.” It seems that she was born to survive her dying Son and God allowed this so that she would be for us a tower of strength in times of sorrow and distress.
St. John Vianney says, “Struggles put us at the foot of the Cross and the Cross at the gate of Heaven. And our Lady is in both places waiting for us; she’s at the foot of the cross, she’s at the gate of Heaven. The archer, hunting deer, usually only has one chance. He must aim at the heart, such a blow will take down the deer with one arrow. An arrow placed anywhere else and the deer will often run off and die some place hard to find. Our Blessed Mother took 7 arrows, 7 swords in her Heart and she remains standing. Seven represents perfection, if none of seven swords would bring her down, nothing could. The Church has spoken that there is no swooning virgin. She was not overcome with stress or emotion. Suffering has shown her to be perfect in every way. And this is way the dragon, the ancient dragon, the devil in the Apocalypse could not touch her, could not assail her, and was forced to make war on the rest of her offspring. Now the heart of man is the most wounded part of man, fallen man. Not so without the Immaculate Heart of Mary; it was her strength, taking seven swords. It was wounded, but not by any sin of hers for she had none, but by ours….the sins of man. Her Heart is perfect and suffers perfectly with her Son feeling all His pains caused by our sins. No wonder St. Bernard taught that our Lady’s sufferings amount to more than all the saints sufferings combined. Imagine… millennia of saints, Blessed Mother’s sufferings are more than all theirs combined, all those martyrs… St. Bernard. She perfectly fulfilled the passage, “O ye that pass by the way and attend and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.” There isn’t any. This means that she was able to assist us, she will be able to assist us no matter what. No matter trial we go through, whatever problem we have; she can help us. There are no exceptions.
Now in keeping with the Fathers of the Church, let’s go back to the Gospel [Sept.15]. Is not a dead boy being carried out of the city like a soul in mortal sin; he’s a young man, he’s dead, he’s on a bier, he’s being carried out. He’s dead, he’s in mortal sin, he’s been carried out of the Church, the city of God. St. Thomas Aquinas adds since a great crowd was aware of his death, the young man was accomplished in sin; in other words it was more habitual and public, people knew about it. Yet the Sacred Heart of Jesus took pity on the tears of the sorrowing mother which of course represents our Lady and the Church. Begging for his conversion. So in the Gospel it was the tears of the mother that moved our Lord to mercy. So do you know someone who has fallen away, living in mortal sin; let us not give up and lose heart. Let us pray to our Lady for the conversion of sinners.
But now let’s focus on how our Lord brought this young man back to life. The Gospel says that He didn’t touch his flesh, but He touched the wood of the bier. He said, “Young man I say to thee arise.” Now this is Sacramental. In the Sacraments, our Lord uses various instruments including material things like water, oil, bread, and wine to come to us to the words of the priest, who acts in His very Person. God grants new life through the instrumental causes and the spoken word. This is Sacramental. Also just as the boy is raised from death by God’s power passing through the wood of the bier, so too does God save us through the wood of the Cross. So He speaks some words while touching an instrument and the power flows through and lifts up the boy to new life. Sacramental.
Now let’s us spend the rest of our time then meditating on what St. Thomas Aquinas indicated by this man’s death. Namely that it represents the death of a man who was more or less habituated in sin. Accomplished in sin… Through the prayers of our Lady, he was revived through the Sacraments; that’s what is being symbolized at least at one level here. This is a special grace… He was dead and now he’s alive, but what’s he going to do now that he’s alive. He’s accomplished in sin; he’s use to it. Will he relapse again into his former ways? St. Jerome teaches that many begin well but few persevere. Our Lord says, “that only he who perseveres in holiness to death, and not just they begin a good life shall be saved.” In St. Matthew’s Gospel we hear to words, “But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved.” “Crowns of paradise,” says St. Bernard, “is promised to those that commence but is given only to those who persevere.” So we are all here promised a crown but only those that persevere will receive that crown. If this man, free from his former habits, is he free from them? Will he be able to overcome them or will he fall again? The Scriptures say, “Son when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear and prepare thyself for temptation. In other words when you walk out of Confession, get ready…there’s gonna be a battle. The very things you confessed are going to come back and you’re going to have to fight. So we must not imagine that we shall have no more temptations after a good Confession but actually prepare ourselves for combat and guard ourselves against the relapse into the sins that we confessed. For if we lose grace of God again, will we recover…?
With the help of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of moral theology, let us consider the miserable state of relapsing sinners that is of those that after Confession miserably fall back into the sins in which they have confessed. So he says, “If a man recover from a mortal disease and afterwards falls back into it, he shall have lost much of his strength, his natural strength; such that his recovery from the relapse will be very difficult.” This is preciously what happened to relapsing sinners. Every sin, though pardoned, always leaves a wound on the soul, a stain…. When new wounds or stains are added to old ones the soul becomes so week that without a special or extraordinary grace from God it is impossible for her to conquer temptations. The relapsing sinner returns to its vomit by taking back into the soul the sins vomiting forth in confession…. They shall be so weak that they will become objects of amusement to the devil. St. Anselm says, “The devil acquires a certain dominion over them so that he makes them fall and fall again as he wishes; we become the devils play thing. Hence the miserable beings become like birds with which a child amuses himself. He allows them from time to time to fly to a certain height but then draws them back again as he pleases with a little cord he’s got tied around their foot.” Can also think of a cat playing with a mouse, he lets it go so far then arrr…. Brings them back, mine. Such as the manner in which the devil treats relapsing sinners. Furthermore the relapse of ungrateful Christians into previous sins is very displeasing to God. Because after He has called and pardoned them with so much love, he sees that forgetful of His mercies to them they again turn their back upon Him and relapse into sin and renounce His grace.
In the Psalms we hear, “For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it […] But Thou, my intimate friend, a man of one mind, my guide and familiar. Who didst take sweetmeats together with me, have betrayed me. Had my enemies says the Lord insulted me, I would have felt less pain. But to see you rebel against after I had restored my friendship to you and after I had made you sit at my table and eat my own flesh, grieves me to the heart and impels me to take vengeance on you.
Miserable the man who after having received so many graces from God becomes His enemy. He shall find the this sword of divine justice prepared to chastise him. The Scriptures say, ‘And he that passeth over from justice to sin, God hath prepared such an one for the sword.’ Some may say well I will relapse I will soon rise again, for I will immediately will prepare myself for Confession. To those who speak in this manner shall become like Samson, remember the story of Samson? He got away a number of times and he was free of the Philistines but once… Dalila cut his hair, he allowed himself to be deluded once again and Dalila got his secret this time, cut his hair while he was asleep and his strength departed from him. Awaken from sleep he said I will go out as I did before and shake myself from these Philistines, not knowing that the Lord had departed from him… He expected to deliver himself as on former occasions from the hands of the Philistines but because his strength had departed from him, he was made their slave. They put out his eyes, they bound him in chains, they shut him up in prison, and they treated him like a fool. After relapsing into sin, a Christian loses his strength necessary to resist temptations because the Lord has departed from him. He abandons him by withholding the efficacious aid necessary to overcome temptations. And the miserable man remains blind and abandoned in his sin. Now Samson made it back in the end didn’t he? After a life of enslavement to these Philistines and being made a fool of and being a slave as turning around that mill like a horse; he finally made it back at the very end. Need we make a chance like that? No…We don’t know if we can make it back at the end.
St. Thomas Aquinas says, “The relapsing sinner becomes like Lazarus, dead and rotting and stinking in the grave of sin.” And how was Lazarus rescued? By a contemplative, St. Mary Magdalene. He was rescued by divine mercy, through the intercession of a contemplative. It was her tears and her prays that moved him to raise him back from death to life. Think about it. How many of us can rely on such a thing when so few women today in our times prize the virginal and contemplative life in the convents. There are fewer and fewer faithful nuns… Fewer and fewer conversions…
Let us then brethren tremble at the thought of relapsing into sin. Let us beware of availing ourselves to the mercy of God only to continue to offend Him again. Sorrow for sin is a pure gift of God. If He withholds it, how will we repent? And without repentance, how can we obtain pardon…Ahh the Lord will not allow Himself to be mocked, we heard it in the reading today. “Be not deceived,” says St. Paul, “God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption.” St. Isidore tells us that, ‘The man who repeats the sin which he before detested is not penitent but a scoffer of God’s Majesty.’ Tertullian teaches that where there is no amendment, repentance is not sincere. St Peter says to the Jews, ‘Be penitent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.’ Many repent but are not converted. They feel a certain sorrow for the irregularities of their lives, but do not sincerely return to God and make amendments and do penance. They go to confession, they strike their breasts and promise to amend, but they do not make a firm resolution to change their lives and they relapse quickly into sin again… after confession. This shows as St. Peter says that they repent but are not converted. And such persons shall in the end risk dying an unhappy death.
St. Alphonsus tells a story of a certain young Englishman who as is related in the story of England was in the habit of relapsing into sins against purity. He always fell back into these sins after confession. At the hour of death he confessed his sins and died in a manner with reason to hope for his salvation but while a holy priest was preparing to celebrate Mass for his departed soul, the miserable youth appeared to him and said that he was damned. He added, that at the point of death he was tempted to indulge in an impure thought and as he was accustom to do in his former life, he yielded to the temptation and was lost. That’s what happens for those who love sin… in this life instead of hating it. That’s what happens to those that sow in the flesh, they reap corruption eternally. Is there no means of salvation for relapsing sinners father, this is awfully hard? I did not say this with St. Alphonsus but we adopt the maxim of physicians; in malignant diseases, powerful remedies are necessary. To turn to the way of salvation the relapsing sinner must do great violence to himself. Jesus said, ‘the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.’ In the beginning of a new life, the relapsing sinner must do violence to himself in order to root out the bad habits in which he has contracted… and to acquire habits of virtue. And when he has acquired habits of virtue the observance of the divine commands shall become easy and even sweet. As the lives of the saints prove.
The Lord once said to St. Bridget, ‘To those who bear with fortitude the first punctures of the thorns which they experience in the attracts of the senses in avoiding occasions of sin and overcoming temptations and withdrawing from dangerous conversations; these thorns are by degrees changed into roses. Yes it will be hard, but it can be done, it’s worth it. But to use this necessary violence, this evangelical, as it were, violence to lead a life a regularity, we must adopt the proper means. Otherwise we shall do nothing… we’ll just think about it and never do it. For this then I put out a battle plan to take home with you, if there are any extra take it with you, it won’t do any good sitting here. Put this battle plan into effect in your life. Study it. All of us can learn from this battle plan, not just those who have habitual mortal sins; all of us can learn. Let us take it to heart. He that soweth in the spirit shall have everlasting life. Here is how to sow in the spirit. Happy the man, who will order his life according to this plan. Based upon the lives of and the writings of the saints. He shall be found worthy of Our Lord when He comes. If he follows this plan when Our Lord shall come again and judge him, O how sweet the meeting will be. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen”
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