Nothing More Precious
Fr. Clifford M. Laube, SMM
What is the role of Our Lady in our everyday trials and crosses?
W HERE there is Christ crucified, there is Mary.
A better understanding of Mary’s role in the drama of The Cross, will enable us to gain a deeper and truer insight into both of these mysteries of the Wisdom of God – the mystery of humility that is called the Cross, and the mystery of grace that is called Mary.
Mary’s Role And The Cross
Mary’s relationship to the Cross of Christ may be examined in a three-fold aspect; first, her presence at the Crucifixion; secondly, her part in the final triumph of Christ when as St. Louis De Montfort says, His Cross will go before Him placed upon the most brilliant cloud that ever appeared; and thirdly, her role in our everyday crosses.
The presence of the Mother of God at the foot of the Cross is a divinely revealed fact recorded in the Bible. That Our Lady could stand valiantly before her suffering Son and witness his cruel torture and death, was an altogether surpassing gift of God. But it was not an unprepared act of heroism. For Our Lady had borne her own cross even before Simeon had predicted the wounding of her Immaculate Heart by the sword of unmerited grief. Mary had stood up bravely throughout the uncertain hours at Bethlehem and during the flight into Egypt.
She had undergone the loss of Jesus in Jerusalem and the long years of raising her Son in poverty. She had suffered with Him through the humiliations of His public life. Mary had witnessed many of the cruel tortures of His Passion. She had heard the mock justice of the Sanhedrin and the Roman tribunal. She had seen His lacerated flesh and had exchanged a soul-searing glance with Him on that frightful way to Calvary.
Mary’s entire life was a preparation for that moment on a knoll outside Jerusalem when she completed her own sacrifice by giving up her Son out of love and pity for sinners. Sacred Scripture is one long proof of Mary’s crucified life. She lived by the Cross, and, like her Son, she ardently loved the Cross.
Mary’s Relationship With the Cross and the Second Coming
Mary’s relationship with the Cross of Christ will be especially manifest at the Second Coming of Our Lord. St. Louis De Montfort predicts that on the day of the Last Judgment, Jesus Christ will bring to an end all the relics of the saints, even the most worthy of respect; but as for those of His Cross He will command the chief Seraphim and Cherubim to gather up throughout the whole world all the particles of the true Cross, and they will be so well reunited by His loving omnipotence that they form but one Cross, the very Cross which He died. He will have this Cross borne in triumph by the angels who will sing its joyful praises. His Cross will go before Him placed upon the most brilliant cloud that ever appeared. He will judge the world with His Cross and by It.
Mary’s Role During Last Judgement
No one knows the precise role that Our Lady will play on that last day, but all theologians agree that Mary will occupy an eminent place, close to the judgment seat of her Son. Indeed it would seem strange for the Queen to be absent or relegated to an insignificant place at that final hour when the King of the Universe will be present with His entire heavenly court. And if, according to St. Paul, all the saints will act as judges on that last day in the sense that they will pronounce the sentence handed down by the justice of Almighty God; if, moreover, it was given to the Apostles in a special way to judge the twelve tribes of Israel, what will be the role of the Mother of God who towers above the other saints in holiness, and is the very Queen of the Apostles?
The Pieta : Michelangelo : 1498 – 1500
The original Pieta resides in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica. This Pieta resides near the entrance of The Shrine of Our Lady of the Island.
Our Blessed Lady does more, however, than merely obtain crosses for us. She also prepares them with so much maternal sweetness and pure love as to make them gladly acceptable no matter how bitter they may be in themselves. We all have crosses. Some of us have been chosen to carry heavier ones than others. But all are from the hands of God and are suited to our strength and to our love. Jesus Christ, in His Wisdom, plans and shapes our crosses, carving them from His Own. His Blessed Mother sweetens them, prepares us to receive them and helps us to bear them well.
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Nor will Mary’s part be divorced from that of the Cross of Christ. Once again Our Lady will stand at the foot of the Cross to welcome to its side those blessed members of Christ who accepted it on earth as one of her greatest gifts. She who made the Cross so acceptable to her servants while they were on earth, will rejoice with them in their triumph – for in that Sign they will have conquered.
Mary’s Present Role and the Cross
The third point to be considered in discussing Mary’s relationship to the Cross of her Son, is her present role as dispensatrix of those splinters of the Cross that we know as trials and sufferings. In this regard Mary performs two offices for her faithful servants. She obtains crosses for them, she makes these crosses pleasant and acceptable.
It may sound strange to learn that Our Blessed Lady obtains crosses for her servants. In this modern age when the desire for pleasure has made in-roads into the hearts of even the most stalwart Christians, suffering is feared and avoided, and when inevitable, its presence is begrudged. There are few Christians who possess the grace of true knowledge of the mystery of the Cross. Yet the words of Christ are crystal clear : ”If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Just as Christ after His death, did not relinquish the Cross for Himself, neither did He reject It for us. He wants the Cross to be the sign of His elect. Jesus receives no Christian that is not marked with its character. He admits no disciple who does not bear it lovingly.
True Knowledge of The Cross
Although knowledge of the Cross is so rare, it is the only knowledge worth having. St. Paul, after his return from the third heaven where he was initiated into mysteries which even the angels had not learned, proclaimed that he knew nothing and wanted to know-nothing but Jesus Christ crucified. St. Louis De Montfort does not hesitate to assert that he who knows how to carry his cross, though he know not A from B, towers above all others in learning.
St. Louis was able to speak with authority on such a subject for he spoke from experience. Rejected, rebuked, insulted at every turn, he was a true lover of the Cross after the model of Jesus Christ. In one of his sermons, he gives us a few precious thoughts from his heaven-sent knowledge of the mystery of the Cross. When we consider what he says, we begin to understand why Our Blessed Lady can help her servants in no better way than to obtain crosses for them.
The saintly missioner writes that instead of bearing any feeling of aversion for those who persecute us, we should rather consider them as instruments which God uses to make us suffer. Those who seem to do us evil are in reality our best friends. More-over, St. Louis reminds us that when we are thwarted or misunderstood or rebuked even when we wish to do something good, we should rejoice, for instead of receiving one crown for the good work intended, we shall receive two – one that will reward our good will, and one that will crown our patience, our humility, and our abandonment to the good pleasure of God.
Mary’s Graces and Favors From Heaven … For Us
From these few considerations, we can catch a glimpse of the tremendous value of the Cross. It is because of this great value that, as Montfort remarks, ”Our Lord once said to one of His servants, ’I have crosses of such great price that My Mother, all powerful though she be, can obtain nothing more precious from Me for her faithful servants.’ ” And in his ”Treatise on True Devotion, ” St. Louis says that the most faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin, being also her greatest favorites, receive from her the greatest graces and favors of heaven, which are crosses.
Our Blessed Lady does more, however, than merely obtain crosses for us. She also prepares them with so much maternal sweetness and pure love as to make them gladly acceptable no matter how bitter they may be in themselves. We all have crosses. Some of us have been chosen to carry heavier ones than others. But all are from the hands of God and are suited to our strength and to our love. Jesus Christ, in His Wisdom, plans and shapes our crosses, carving them from His Own. His Blessed Mother sweetens them, prepares us to receive them
and helps us to bear them well.
The Value of Our Crosses
Such is the role of the Mother of God in regard to our everyday crosses. Would that Christians would realize the value of suffering, and learn to suffer properly. How many opportunities are lost each day? Opportunities of accepting a little cross and offering it back to Jesus through Mary! Our everyday trials and sufferings are a veritable goldmine of merit. Let us ask Our Lady to help us bare our crosses well. Let us ask her to offer them to Jesus for us. Ask Mary to make us perfect imitators of Christ by being ardent lovers of His Cross. Let us ask her for the knowledge and the possession of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
