"SWORD OF SORROW"
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TODAY’S THEME: 

For today’s lesson, our subject is the SWORD OF SORROW. The “sword of sorrow” is a well-known expression among Christians. We often speak of Mary’s “sword of sorrow”—not that the sword was something that Mary created, but that she was given a “sword of sorrow”.

Now the “sword of sorrow” is an expression, a graphic image called to mind by language. The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1, verse 35 doesn’t refer to a real, military sword of steel. Rather, Luke’s gospel says that sorrow itself is a sword. Simeon, in Luke’s gospel, says that sorrow will pierce Mary’s soul.

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TODAY’S LESSON:

Today, our subject is the SWORD OF SORROW. Our Divine Lesson for today is taken from Luke Chapters 01, 02 and 08 and John’s gospel, chapter 19. Let’s begin today’s reflection with Luke Chapter 1. 

NOW THERE was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27. 

AND INSPIRED by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, 28.  he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 29. 

"LORD, NOW lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; 30.  for mine eyes have seen thy salvation 31.  which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32.  a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel." 33.

AND HIS father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; 34.  and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against 35.  (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."  [Lk 1:25-35] 

That sorrow is compared to a sword tells us a lot about the nature of sorrow. A sword is an ancient weapon. It’s a weapon with a long blade for cutting or thrusting. The blade is set in a hilt and pommel. Swords will often have a tang or protective guard at the point where the blade joins the handle. A sword was made for the express purpose of settling disputes by a contest of strength.

Injury and death were common in any confrontation that involved swords. A sword was a standard piece of equipment for any soldier. Often, civilians kept a sword handy to take care of various threats to homes, shops and farms. The beauty and value of a sword said much about its owner. As part of his personal armor, a soldier’s sword reflected his family background, degree of wealth, connection to the royal house, and so forth. It was a common practice for soldiers to provide their own armor.          

So when Sacred Scripture speaks of a “sword of sorrow”, it makes reference to sorrow as something personal, as something rightfully appropriate to the Mother of Jesus Christ. Not that Mary’s sorrow was an experience that anyone should have to endure; rather, Mary’s sorrowful experience at the foot of the cross was, in some way, necessary.

Mary’s sorrow was necessary, for example, because she was the mother of Our Lord. As a mother, she chose to be present to her beloved son during the hour of his passion and death. And too, Mary’s sorrow was necessary in the sense that it gave the Church an important example of faith and endurance in the midst of trial.

The sorrow that pierced Mary’s heart at the foot of the cross was as personal as her son Jesus. No young mother would want to hear Simeon’s words, to hear that her infant child would be branded one day as a controversialist on the national scene. No mother wants to hear that her life will be filled with sorrow.

Like a sword, sorrow is an ancient but ever-modern human experience of grief and suffering. In every age, sorrow renews its capacity to thrust itself through the human heart. It stabs clean through the heart’s defenses, the mind’s complacent assumptions, the pride of life, and our fragile and often laughable human expectations.

No doubt, many occasions evoked the possibilities of sorrow for Mary. When Jesus was 12 years old, Mary and Joseph became separated from him in the crowds. They thought their son was close by as they were returning to Nazareth from the Jerusalem festival. For three days, Mary and Joseph searched for the boy without finding him. Finally, they discovered him to be in the Great Temple of Jerusalem teaching the teachers:

AND WHEN he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom; 43.  and when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, 44.  but supposing him to be in the company they went a day's journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances; 45.  and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him. 46. 

AFTER THREE days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; 47.  and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48. 

AND WHEN they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously." 49.  And he said to them, "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" 50.  And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. 51.  An

AND HE went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. 52.  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.  [Lk 2:42-52] 

Notice that Mary again had recourse to her heart. The Word of God says that the mother of Jesus “kept all these things in her heart”. This was not the first time that Mary pondered things. Mary thought about a lot of things. There was much she could understand; after all, she was intuitive and intelligent. Nevertheless, many things happened that surprised, even overwhelmed her, things that no mortal human being could fully comprehend, let alone control.

Mary was aware that much controversy surrounded her son; Mary was forced to accept his growing notoriety and the dangerous talk of crowds. The anxiety of separation did not resolve itself at the Jerusalem Temple when Jesus was twelve. Mary’s anxiety and worry increased as Jesus’ ministry immersed him deeper and deeper into the wounds of the nation. The annunciation story, one could argue, reveals that Jesus caused his mother to be anxious before he was conceived!

AND (THE angel Gabriel) came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" 29.  But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. 30.  And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  [Lk 1:28-30] 

Though she couldn’t fully understand what she was being asked to do, Mary’s response to God was always three-fold. First, Mary obeyed. She gave her assent to being God’s instrument in his plan of salvation. Second, she reverently took all the things of God and faith into her heart for safekeeping. Third, she meditated on her encounter with God and the meaning of her role in his divine plan.

We can’t underestimate the importance of Mary’s response to God—her own sanctification, the fulfillment of Christ’s mission, the salvation and care of souls, and the call to serve faithfully. The evidence of Mary’s complete cooperation with God may be found at Bethlehem’s stable. The shepherds reveal to Mary and Joseph the words of the heavenly angels:

"GLORY TO God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!" 15.  When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." 16.  And

AND THEY went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 17.  And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; 18.  and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.  [Lk 1:14-18] 

What does Luke’s gospel say? “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.”  [Lk 2:19]  Mary received the song of the angels and the shepherd’s message in obedience. She gave her assent to the role of her family in revealing the fullness of God’s Kingdom to the world.

Mary received all these things into her heart for safekeeping. She pondered the meaning of all that had happened by means of prayer and meditation. Mary certainly had long hours, very dreary days, and tedious months of exile in Egypt to ponder how very close King Herod had come to murdering her child in Bethlehem.  [cf. Mt 2:13-21] 

I believe an instance of sorrow occurred in the village of Cana in the years before Jesus was crucified on the cross. It was the apostle John, actually, who provides the recollection in chapter 2 of his gospel. Jesus, his disciples, and his mother Mary traveled to the village of Cana to attend a wedding. Realizing the urgent need for more wine, the stewards—remarkably—go to Mary for help.

Mary seeks out her son Jesus for a solution. At first, Jesus seems unmoved by the situation. He says in reply to his mother, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” [Jn 2:4]  In an act of supreme charity and “letting go”, Mary turned to the stewards and said regarding her son, “Do whatever he tells you.”  [Jn 2:5]  Then she stepped back and turned away.

Thus, Mary gives up her maternal custody of Jesus. She literally entrusts him to the stewards of the Church. She is the catalyst for the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, urging him to begin at Cana. Mothers know sorrow when they let their children go. When they’ve done all they can do to prepare a child to make his way in the world, mothers still feel sorrow at the separation.

They worry. They say in their hearts, What will become of my son? My daughter? Will he make it? Will she be happy? Will the world be a better place because of them? Will my child keep me in labor all my life? And, there’s something else a mother may ask:  Will my child remember me? Care for me? Can I face the future alone? Will I make it?

At first, it seemed as if Jesus had forgotten his mother. Or, perhaps, turned away from Mary and his childhood family in preference to others:

THEN HIS mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him for the crowd. 20.  And he was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you." 21.  But he said to them, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it."  [Lk 8:19-21] 

On the surface, it looks as if Jesus was disobedient to his mother. Or at the very least, disrespectful. What would your mother experience if you refused to see her or speak to her? If you said that strangers were more important than your mother. This would be a moment of confusion and sorrow for any mother, I think.

For Jesus spoke at times of conflict between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and divisions in one’s household—all on account of his gospel. “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?” Jesus asks, “No, I tell you, but rather division.”  [Lk 12:61] 

What did Mary think when she heard her son speak in this way? What would any mother think, for that matter? What did Jesus say?  “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”.  [Mt 10:37]  And then, a remark from Jesus about a disciple leaving his mother:  “And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.”  [Mt 19:29] 

Mark’s gospel makes a telling admission. One day, members of Jesus’ extended family took matters into their own hands. They had heard of all these strange and contradictory things their brother was saying. They heard of the wonderful and provocative miracles attributed to him. They knew that everywhere Jesus went, the crowds of people stirred up like great clouds of locusts.

Everywhere it seemed, controversy dogged Jesus. He could not escape gossip and slander. And worst of all, the authorities were growing ever more suspicious of Jesus and his activities. They had spies following him, and in any number of instances, tried to effect his arrest and imprisonment.

Mark’s gospel, characteristically, is very blunt:  “And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, ‘He is beside himself.’”  [Mk 3:21]  Surely, all the marvelous and confusing accounts of Jesus’ ministry troubled his mother Mary from time to time. She had to have heard some very distressing words—even accusations—about her son.

On every occasion of doubt or worry, she had to confront waves of sorrow and apprehension. With every passing day, the situation concerning her son was growing more and more urgent, more and more dangerous. The shadow of the cross loomed larger and larger over the life of her son and his apostles. And Mary herself.

Finally, the cross. Whatever the sorrows Mary endured during the life and ministry of Jesus, they were as nothing compared to what she had to endure from the evening of his fateful Passover to the hour of his death on the cross. Sacred Scripture is eloquent in its silence regarding Mary’s suffering at the cross. This is understandable, isn’t it?

Though Mary fulfilled an absolutely indispensable role in God’s plan of salvation, the story of the cross belonged to Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus the Christ—the “Lord’s anointed”—was the Son of Man and the Son of God. For the Gospel authors, and the culture of the day, heroic suffering was less an occasion to express personal feelings than as an opportunity to search for meaning and understanding.

Mary had the opportunity to gain some insight, some intuition, some perspective regarding the future even as she stood before the cross, the extreme symbol of finality and hopelessness. Again, it was the apostle John who remembered an extraordinary moment during Jesus’ passion. Of course, he would remember. Of the twelve apostles, he alone stood with Mary in silent witness of the agony of Christ. Here’s how John remembered the exchange: 

WHEN JESUS saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" 27.  Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.  [Jn 19:26-27] 

Mary was not exempt from change. It seemed as if her whole world broke apart and its pieces were carried off by the wind. Could anything worthwhile be found on the other side of the cross? When would it all be over? How much could a mother endure? Her gratitude at being received into John’s care and home was tempered by the certainty of her personal loss. She was being received into a home, because she had lost her home. And the apostle John was so young, so very young.

To be honest, he didn’t have much of a home, either. It seems as if Jesus, contemplating his mother’s sorrow, knew that his mother needed a faithful son more than a home. Yes, Mary could have gone back to Nazareth. But the people of that village would regard her as a lonely old woman trying to make a new beginning for herself. With John, however, she would have a son and a home. Even more than that, her relationship to John would propel her into a new and profound experience of motherhood.

Beginning with John, she would be the mother of many disciples. She would be the spiritual mother of countless Christian men and women. Through the angel, God called her to be the mother of his son. Now, through his son, God was calling her to be the mother of the Church. Her inaugural day as Mother of the Church would be the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God would descend on Mary, the apostles and the others gathered in the house in Jerusalem.

Mary was well-suited for this apostolate. After all, she was the first and best witness of faith. She had said yes to her Son, even before his birth! She had given her twelve-year-old son Jesus to God the Father in Jerusalem’s Temple. She had entrusted her son to the Church at Cana. Her’s was a stunning example of selfless giving from the annunciation to the crucifixion.

Yes, sorrow pierces the heart, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s called a sword. Sorrow, like a sword, pierces the heart. When I say “pierce”, I mean “strike”, to thrust through and through by force. We speak of the pain of sorrow. Sorrow creates a wound, and hence is an act of spiritual violence. Sorrow endangers the human soul. Some persons never overcome their sorrow. Whereas sorrow penetrates the human heart—and by this I mean the human soul—its emotional toll may very well hasten a grieving person’s death.

It’s important to remember that Mary did not run away from Jesus’ passion and death. She could have. The apostles did. They ran, they shunned the idea of living through it and revealing themselves to the authorities in the process.

And if God had desired for the apostles to receive very great graces, desiring that they be faithful witnesses of Jesus’ crucifixion, those graces were forfeited when all the apostles hid except John. Nevertheless, in the darkest moment of the three-o’clock hour on the day of Jesus’ passion, God the Father poured his grace into the hearts of the wretched little community that stood in faithful vigil.

Mary and John experienced a very great grace of their own. By the command of Christ from the cross, a new family of faith was born. Mary, the first and best of faithful witnesses was received into the home of John, the most beloved and faithful of apostles. Together, they would provide continuity from the past and present into the future. They would be first-hand witnesses of all that had taken place to fulfill the words of the prophets. They would tell the story of Jesus Christ for all generations. The Church would always need an apostle. The Church would always need a mother.

You may not realize it, but it is a great grace to accept suffering as a necessary consequence of fallen human nature, to experience it, to learn from it, and to humbly permit God to make you a better person for it. The late Msgr. Luigi Giussani of Milan, founder of the movement of “Communion and Liberation”, lamented the cold and heartless utilitarian values of this present generation which exclude any possibility of meaning and value in suffering. Such a denial of suffering, of course, means the complete rejection of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the meaning of the cross.

As Msgr. Giussani pointed out, something essential is lost in our humanity if we deny the graces that God can give us in genuine, innocent and even helpless suffering. “For it is possible,” said Msgr. Giusanni, “to be destroyed and wounded without suffering and, therefore, without embarking on the search for an answer...”  [Msgr. Luigi Giussani, "By Grace, Always", Thirty Days 3 (1993): 66-71.]  As it is, suffering united with Christ is made redemptive in Christ.

Just think of it, the notion of suffering for nothing! Suffering without hope! Suffering without redemption! In such a case, sorrow would compound on sorrow. Sorrow would be without limit, without end. When he was reflecting on Jesus’ last words on the cross—“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  [Mt 27:46]—Msgr. Giussani recalled an incident from his own boyhood, an event of suffering that profoundly oriented his life to the good God:

(WHEN I was a boy), I got lost in the great forest of Tradate and, seized with panic, I cried out for all of three hours as the sun went down. That experience showed me—afterwards—that man means “seeking”: man becomes “seeking” if he cries out, but he only cries out if there is something other.

HIS CRY implies the existence of something other. If not, why would he cry out at all?  [Msgr. Luigi Giussani, "By Grace, Always", Thirty Days 3 (1993): 66-71.] 

Who is that “other”? Who is the one to whom and before whom we instinctively cry out in our distress and loneliness? That person is God. Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, said that all human longing is a search for a person:

FROM ALL that I have said to this point it emerges that men and women are on a journey of discovery which is humanly unstoppable--a search for the truth and a search for a person to whom they might entrust themselves.  [John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, no. 33 (1998)] 

Pope Benedict VXI says that truth has a face. The face of truth, he says, is the face of Jesus Christ.

The cross of Jesus Christ marks the convergence of all truth. All truth leads to the cross. All truth is tested on the cross. One of the most profound of truths, and profoundly reassuring, is our Christian belief in the triumph of the cross. The glory of our loving God is so powerful, so majestic, so penetrating, that God’s mastery of evil is an absolute triumph.

He does not accommodate evil, he makes no pact with evil, he tolerates no evil, he does not cooperate with evil, he does not compromise with evil. Hence, the glory of our God demands that he draw a greater good from our suffering than would have ever occurred had our experience of evil never happened.

Not that God desires us to suffer in the first place, but humanity is a fallen race confirmed in its own sinful nature. And suffering is the consequence of the evil that man himself accepts and abets in every instance of his disobedience to God. Evil is what it is until Christ returns again in glory to destroy it and its remnants forever. Until Christ returns again in glory to destroy the last remnants of mankind’s evil once and for all, there will be suffering in this world.

But God triumphs over evil, yesterday, today and tomorrow. God doesn’t just patch things up. He doesn’t just “break even” after evil breaks out. He doesn’t just bring us back to “square one”. We don’t start all over again at “point zero”. No, none of these things. God triumphs over evil so comprehensively, so absolutely that evil is not only destroyed, a far greater good emerges than would have been possible had the evil not happened.

We have only to look at the cross for the proof of our faith. You and I are solid evidence of the greater good. God drew a greater good from the cross of Christ than would ever have happened had Jesus not been nailed to the wood and raised up between heaven and earth for our sins.  

Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk at Gethsemane in Kentucky, USA, once said that the human soul is like a pane of glass, the transparency of which corresponds to purity and holiness.  [       ]  Mary’s selfless offering of her human personhood permitted God to act decisively through her for the good of all mankind. Mary’s human will was so perfectly united with the Divine Will that, as the Mother of God, she became as good as transparent for our sake.

Without doubt, the fate of many souls rests upon whether or not they can behold the face of Christ through your transparent soul; put another way, their salvation depends on whether Christ’s light shines through your soul to illumine their faces. Allow the light of Christ to pierce your sorrow! Allow the light of Christ to purify your suffering!

When the angel Gabriel spoke to a young virgin named Mary, she replied, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."  [Lk 1:38]  That Mary called herself handmaid reveals her humility before God. Renouncing pride, that is to say, the inordinate desire for one’s own excellence, Mary submitted to a more worthy excellence.

She called herself servant; she pledged to become a handmaid in service to a royal family. Thus, her eyes were on Gabriel, the hand of God. She pledged herself with the total gift of mind, soul, heart, and strength  [cf. Mt 22:37]  to be the instrument by which God’s manifest and perfect will would be accomplished. She would fulfill that pledge by the grace of God—the grace he gives in times of joy, and the grace God gives in times of sorrow.

God’s light, piercing Mary’s soul as through an immaculate lens, has illumined the world through her suffering and sorrow at the foot of the cross. It is through Mary’s purity—virginity!—and holiness that we more perfectly behold God’s living glory. Faith and reason do not lie! What we must do is look through the window. Were Mary’s inexpressible submission to God not a lamp on a stand, a city on a hill, the new Ark of the Covenant, how could this generation learn the “true light that enlightens every man”?  [cf. Jn 1:9]  Can one follow what he cannot see?

It was not to Gabriel himself that Mary addressed her deepest intentions. No less than Mary did the angel, the renown spirit-messenger of God, unite his creaturely will to God. Gabriel’s will was so perfectly united to God that he, as God’s hand in this divine-human encounter, was as good as transparent before Mary, who, through her own sinlessness and offering of human will, was privileged to behold the face of God to a degree unknown in human history, surpassing even that of the prophet Moses. It was to God himself, not St. Gabriel, that Mary declared herself to be handmaid. It was to God that she declared, Let it be done to me! Let me stand before the cross!

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RECAP:

Not for the sake of evil hearts and deeds, does God act. No, God acts to redeem our suffering—our innocent and helpless and mysteriously necessary suffering. God acts to confer upon our sacrificial suffering the great vision of hope.

God looked upon the suffering of his only Son on the cross, and drew from it the greater good of mankind’s redemption. The suffering of the cross was the debt paid to ransom us from the slavery of sin and death. By his suffering on the cross, Jesus won for his Father a consecrated people, a holy Church, a people sanctified and reconciled to him.

What great man or great nation, what breath-taking adventure or stunning triumph, what marvelous invention or heroic deed was ever accomplished without sacrifice and suffering? These human events, so colossal in depth and breadth before mortal human eyes, are merely a shadow, a copy, of a heavenly reality—the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Human achievement is but an expression, a modeling, if you will, of unassailable heavenly realities. Does anyone imagine that the most formidable mountain, the most arduous race, the most beautiful city, the most splendid victory, even glorious heaven itself, are worth anything less than the price of sacrifice and suffering? For our good and the good of others?

Isn’t the truly enlightened man the one who wishes to pursue to the limit the fullness of his humanity, that is to say, that part of him that is spiritual, made in the image and likeness of God? Isn’t the truly enlightened man the human being who beseeches God for grace in the moment of his profound suffering? A humble servant determined that not even the least pain, the least confusion, the least sorrow, is devoid of the possibility of grace that holds out the hope of his life’s goal—union with God!

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