MARY IN LENT

During Lent we reflect on Jesus and his passion. We attend the Stations of the Cross, hear Scripture readings leading up to Good Friday when the Passion is read and wonder how we can do something for Lent that will make us better Christians by the end of Lent.

Perhaps we can also reflect on how Mary is part of every day of Lent. Mary, as Mother of Jesus, was there before His birth, during His life, and at the foot of the Cross. Our 40 days of Lent are nothing compared to a lifetime with Jesus leading up to the Passion.

Mary experienced the joys, sufferings, disappointments and sorrows that only a mother knows and experiences with her children. As “Mother” she could not separate herself from her Son knowing He was born to suffer for the world, for all. Jesus’ divinity did not change the circumstances of these events to make them easier on her. If he would not avoid the Cup His Father had given Him to drink deeply of, there is no way Mary could avoid it either.

Simeon predicted that “a sword will pierce” Mary (Luke 2:35). What was Simeon saying to Mary with these words? From Scripture, we know that Mary never felt her flesh pierced in any way. Her body never suffered the torture her Son endured.

We know the “sword” was the suffering she would have to accept. Intense suffering is like a knife in our heart, as though the blood is draining from us leaving us weak and lifeless. Imagine Mary at the foot of the Cross with her heart pierced as the nails plunged into her Son’s hands and feet. She felt the blows of the hammer as it drove the nails into his flesh. The blood flowing from his head under the Crown of Thorns was her blood, the blood she had given him before his birth. His back, torn from the lashes he had sustained, burned like fire on her back, too.

Yes, Mary is present to us during Lent. When we pray the Rosary, let us meditate on the decades of the Sorrowful Mysteries and see Mary there with us as we go from the first Our Father to the Hail, Holy Queen at the end. These are the agonies she suffered as she lived her life with Jesus. Let us accompany her as she walks the Passion with Christ, and, like her, look beyond the suffering to the joy of the Resurrection.

Alma Maish

ASH WEDNESDAY

...Jesus stressed the hidden life. Whether we give alms, pray, or fast, we are to do it in a hidden way, not to be praised by people but to enter into closer communion with God. Lent is a time of returning to God. It is a time to confess how we keep looking for joy, peace and satisfaction in the many people and things surrounding us, without really finding what we desire. Only God can give us what we want. So we must be reconciled with God, as Paul says, and let that reconciliation be the basis of our relationships with others. Lent is a time of refocusing, of re-entering the place of truth, of reclaiming our true identity.
Eternal Seasons--A Liturgical Journey with Henri J. M. Nouwen

submitted by Alma Maish