Every time Mary looked at her little child she would remember the words of Simeon and knew the price they both would pay. (Madonna with child and angels by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato / Wikimedia Commons photo)
My fingers have calluses. I started a small hobby business a couple of years ago selling crocheted saint dolls, so I crochet a lot. Because I sell through a page on Facebook, I’m able to post a picture and maybe an inspirational quote that each saint is known for. I like to see people’s responses to the dolls. I get to see which are most popular, and whose quotes bring about thoughts and conversations.
I recently made a doll of Saint Zelie, the newly canonized mother of Saint Therese of Lisieux. Saint Zelie buried four of her children, and because I know of so many men and women who have lost children, I posted a quote in which she addressed this sorrow. The response was quick and large, but I wasn’t overly surprised. I have never lost a child, but I see this hidden suffering in the hearts of friends, and to see a beloved saint share in that sorrow could only bring about a consolation.
How does a mother or father go on when they leave a child behind? I can’t even imagine. The overwhelming feeling of loss that takes me when I even imagine the idea is too much to linger in. But it is a reality, and a sign of the strength within each mother or father who does go on.
In my parish there is a beautiful painting on the wall behind the tabernacle. Our Lady is enshrined on her throne, with angels on either side. On her lap stands the Christ Child. Mary’s fingers delicately hold him up as he pierces the watcher with his gaze. But Our Lady does not look upon the congregation. Her gaze is fixed upon her little Son, and it isn’t the happy gaze of a new mother watching her child at play. She looks at him with wonder, question, and sorrow.
Mary had already been told of the sword that would pierce her mother’s heart. It wasn’t a secret that there was some loss to come. Every time she would look upon her little child, she would remember the words of Simeon. She already knew the price her Son would pay. She already knew the price she would pay.
Our Lord suffered brutally, and died a humiliating death for our sake, but before this could even happen, Our Lady gave consent to suffer herself. When approached by the angel Gabriel, Mary says, “Let it be done unto me …” The fiat of Mary opened the door for the fiat of Our Lord, “Not my will, but thine be done.”
As Mary clung to the foot of the cross, her pain must have been close to that of her Son’s. Which mother would not eagerly die in the place of her child? But amid her perfect faith and charity, was also her perfect hope; “the virtue by which we firmly trust that God will give us eternal happiness, and the means to attain it.” (Baltimore Catechism #61) She gives her fiat, because she has hope. She knows that the pierced feet she is embracing are those very means used for the attainment of our eternal happiness. She said yes to pain and sorrow, she embraced it, because she had hope in the Resurrection before it had even happened.
Our Easter is one of joy, only because it has been preceded by a time of sorrow. If we have lived Lent well, then we have lived it knowing that any suffering on our parts are the pathway to eternal joy. We can hold on to salvation because we have held on to Christ’s beam on the road to Calvary. By joining him in the sufferings of earthly life we give our fiat; we say that we will move on in hope. And if we know the story well enough we can hope that Christ’s overwhelming sufferings, and our own, are not the end of the story.
Fiat. And Happy Easter.
“When I closed the eyes of my dear little children
and when I buried them, I felt great pain, but it was always with resignation.
I didn’t regret the sorrows and the problems I had endured for them. Several
people said to me, ‘It would be better to never have had them.’ I can’t bear
that kind of talk. I don’t think the sorrows and problems could be weighed
against the eternal happiness of my children. So, they weren’t lost forever.
Life is short and full of misery. We’ll see them again in heaven. Above all, it
was on the death of my first child that I felt more deeply the happiness of
having a child in heaven, for God showed me in a noticeable way that he
accepted my sacrifice. Through the intercession of my little angel, I received
a very extraordinary grace.”
– St. Zelie Martin