Dear Mary,

.

Oh, Mother of All,

On this day, so many lifetimes ago, when you were preparing your home for your Passover meal, was your mother’s heart sensing the pain of what was to come? Did you have a suspicion, an inkling, of what was to befall your beloved Child and Master? Did you have a thought that the day had come when He would be betrayed and denied and abandoned by His most dear friends? Did you know that the people who had just praised His glory would turn on Him?

Did your mother’s heart anticipate the pain of the sword that would pierce it so deeply when your son, scourged and beaten, would meet you on His path, carrying the cross of His death? Could you ever imagine, Oh Holiest of Mothers, the pain you would feel in your own hands and feet as you watched You Child and Master nailed to the cross? And, in the deepest recesses of your soul, could you conceive the sorrow you would suffer watching your beloved Son breathe his last breath, in atonement for all mankind's imperfection?

Holy Mother of God, you knew, didn’t you? When Simeon prophesied the sword to your heart, you knew that you would experience extraordinary anguish. You knew the fear you experienced when you fled to Egypt, and when your Son was lost in the Temple, was but a tear in the ocean compared to the pain you were yet to feel. Oh Mother, how did you stand with the weight of your sorrow? How did you not bury your head and turn your face? What phenomenal strength you had in order to witness each and every affliction your Son endured.

Pray for me, Holy Mother, that in my simple life, I can endure my agonies. That my mother’s heart will not break when my children suffer and fall. Pray for me, that I will have the courage to watch until the very end, and witness their struggles, and pray for them, as you watched, and witnessed and prayed for Our Lord Jesus to the very end. And pray for me, Mother, that one day I will witness the resurrection of my children, and we will all be together with You, and your beloved Son, in heaven.

.