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HIS CROSS AND THE HEART OF GOD.
Never could love surpass that of the Son of God. His love was not one which was manifested in mere words. A blood-drenched cross is witness to the height, and the depth, and the breadth of his 1ove.Yet, Mary’s love for mankind was so great that Pope Pius XII did not hesitate to link her love in as intimate a manner as possible with that of the Son of God. “By the will of God,” he wrote, “the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was inseparably joined with Christ in accomplishing the work of man’s redemption, so that salvation flows from the love of Jesus Christ and His sufferings, intimately united with the love and sorrows of his Mother.”
Mary’s love is the most perfect reflection of the love of the God-Man possible in a human being. So perfect is the union of these two Hearts that we now use the expression, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. If one is deeply moved by the love of the Son, one cannot fail also to be moved by that of the Mother. One must respond with gratitude to the one as to the other. This is why the same Pontiff wrote: “It is, then, highly fitting that after due homage has been paid to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Christian people who have obtained divine life from Christ through Mary manifest similar piety and the love of their grateful souls for the most loving Heart of our heavenly Mother.”
The supreme achievement of Christ was the saving of the human race from eternal doom by means of his redeeming cross. As his cooperator par excellence in this tremendous work, his Mother shared in his achievement. So important and intimate was Mary’s participation in the saving of mankind from eternal perdition that the Church has never hesitated to give her the title of Coredemptrix.
By uniting her unbounded sorrow on Calvary with the sacrificial suffering of her divine Son, our Lady was vividly illustrating the doctrine that the suffering of every member of the Mystical Body of Christ becomes precious when joined with his. She was expounding in practice the teaching St. Paul was to enunciate in saying that he made up for the Church in his own body those things which were lacking in the Passion of our Lord. Mary could not have taught more clearly than she did on Calvary that all the members of the Church not only can, but ought to share in the achievement of her Son by uniting their crosses with his.
The Hearts of our Savior and his Mother were united on Calvary in sacrificial love for mankind. “The divine blood and the tears of the Mother flow together,” writes Dom Gueranger, “and are mixed for the redemption of the human race.” As was true of the sacrifice of her Son, all her suffering was for others, for she needed to offer none for herself. Under the cross, Mary gave an example of love for others only second to that of the divine Redeemer himself.
Fr. Bertrand Weaver CP (His Cross in Your Life) |
