Ave Maria Meditations
An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ (Mt 2:13)
I pity you, oh my afflicted mother, on account of the second sword that pierced you when you did behold your innocent Son, so soon after his birth, threatened with death by those very men for whom he had come into the world; so that you were obliged to flee with him by night secretly into Egypt. By the many hardships, then, that you, a delicate young virgin, in company with your exiled infant, did endure in the long and wearisome journey through rough and desert countries, and in your sojourn in Egypt, where, being unknown and a stranger, you did live all those years poor and despised, I pray you oh my beloved Lady, to obtain for me the grace to suffer with patience, in your company till death, the trials of this miserable life, that I may be able in the next to be preserved from the eternal sufferings of hell deserved by me.
Then, Oh Mary, even after Thy Son hath died by the hands of men who persecuted Him unto death, have not these ungrateful men yet ceased from persecuting Him with their sins, and continuing to afflict Thee, oh Mother of Sorrows? And I also have been one of these. Ah, my most sweet Mother, obtain for me tears to weep for such ingratitude. And then, by the sufferings Thou didst experience in the journey to Egypt, assist me in the journey that I am making to eternity, that at length I may go to unite with Thee in loving my persecuted Savior, in the eternal country of the Blessed. Amen.
