Sorrowful Mother

Its funny how God works ...how patient He is, always, with me.  He knows I arrive at something quickly, a conclusion, an awareness ...but too often, it leaves me with less than He offers me.  So He waits, and builds my awareness gradually.  It is not my nature to pause ...to wait.  He knows that, works with it.  Its how he is with all of us ...always.  He knows each of us as intimately as possible ...and loves us, and waits ...always.
Soon after Phoebe died, I arrived home one day to find a gift bag waiting for me.  My friend had left it for me.  At that point I was so overwhelmed with the generosity that kept coming and coming, that it was getting difficult to receive ...I just didn't feel worthy.  Inside was an incredibly beautiful rosary like I had never seen.  It was  a rosary for the Seven Sorrows of Mary ...a beautiful soft pink that felt like lotion in my hands.  My friend had found this and wrote that she knew immediately that it was meant for me ...a beautiful note.  This treasure was an antique, probably well worn with prayers.  I knew the sorrows of the Blessed Mother, but had never heard of this rosary.  Enclosed with the rosary was a description and guide that led me in saying this devotion as I recalled all of Our Lady's sorrows that caused her great suffering in her life and mother of Christ.  I say the rosary every day, have for many years now ...so I've held this new set of beads many times and felt the grace of their molecules, but have actually said the sorrowful rosary only a few times.  I've thought about that, but have thought about many things over these past months.  One thing that has tugged at me of late as I am so hammered by this inability to move past the anxiety is,  what in fact, is the best way for me to pray now.  I feel like all I do is complain and whine at God.  Like a child, I am angry things haven't gone my way ...angry, sad, confused, afraid that He, this Heavenly Father has taken a dearest treasure of mine.  Just how do I pray?
I believe He sees me, watches me ...and is forming me for Him in all eternity.  And I believe that the joy of my reunion with Phoebe, the pure ecstasy of that ...will only pale as I come face to face with Him.  I know this. Yet, I feel completely alone and abandoned by Him.  Not only Him, but the Blessed Mother as well, whose presence I have not felt at all since Phoebe died.   Yesterday as I was driving I spoke to her and told her how sad I was, that I had thought she would be there for me during my sorrow.  It was her I had begged and pleaded with, commissioned to go to Phoebe's aid, as I raced home to what I thought might be a tragedy.  I had told her the whole way there that I trusted her and her son and I knew they would be with us in our hour of need.  And I know they were.  But though there are times when I know in my heart she has been there, He has been there ....I have not actually felt them there.  Where have they gone?  Where is God?  Where is the Blessed Mother?  So I told her all this in the car yesterday, along with the fact that she was created pure and immaculate ...so she had the special grace to  bear her suffering that I don't.  I was just being honest.  "Hey, where are you now.  I've been devoted to your son, trusted in your intercession for years ...and this ...this is how I'm treated?"  No answer.
Later, I get a text message from a friend who almost nightly says goodnight and lets me know she is praying for me.  This time she leaves a message , "are you familiar with Our Lady of Sorrows and her rosary."  Yes, I am, I think looking at the beautiful set of beads on my bureau.  "Tell me more"  I write back.  Today she does. She tells me I need to learn more about her sorrows and that I  need to start this devotion.  Very matter of fact, she tells me "You need to say it ...its for you."  She tells me about the suffering of the Blessed Mother that began with St. Simeon's prophecy ...that from that point on, she suffered ...knowing what was to come.
She knew it all.  Immediately I am humbled.  Here, I had accused her, silently of not knowing, understanding, caring about my pain, my loss ...because she was holy, how could she.  I knew she wept at His suffering, but she wept too as He grew, knowing full well  what He was growing to accomplish.  Had I known ...I would have left.  Had I known from the time Phoebe was a tiny baby that she would die as she did ...I would have left.  I would have left everyone behind.  Had I known the intensity, the degree of this suffering, I would have found a way ...and bolted.  The Blessed Mother had the grace to carry that suffering, that waiting her whole life ...she is far strong, far more faithful, a far better servant than I can ever hope to be.  She knows my pain, my anguish.  She knows what it is to live what I live.  How dare I question that?  But I believe it is in the questioning that God has allowed it all to be revealed to me ...to allow me to fully understand the great mystery of suffering ...the redemption of suffering.  Though I do not see her, feel her, she stands beside me, behind me often to keep me upright.  Our Lady of Sorrows ...she lived sorrow.  She is my respite.  Through a friend, an obedient, faithful friend ...she has shown herself ...and God has once again, patiently waited until I was ready ...until I would and could see ...and embrace the grace He offers for me.  I will grab hold and trust that by meditating on the seven sorrows I will be pulled back from the fear, the anguish, the bitterness.  Holding on I will survive.  One day, I will begin to count the joys of the day, rather than the loss of the day.  One day, once again I will choose to embrace the day, the moment. One day I will give thanks for another day to live and love and witness the grace all around me.  One day.  I am not there yet.  I am trying ...and He has heard me yet again, and offered me the heart of a mother that knows full well the heart of this mother.  I am thankful ...and hopeful, that one day, I can be a channel of grace, an instrument of the Holy Spirit as so many of my dear friends have been to me.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!

MOST HOLY and afflicted Virgin,
Queen of Martyrs,
You stood beneath the Cross,
Witnessing the agony of your dying Son.

Look down with a mother’s tenderness
And have pity on me,
Who kneels before you to venerate your
Sufferings and to place my request
With filial confidence in the sanctuary
Of your wounded heart.

Present them, I beseech you,
On my behalf, to Jesus Christ,
Through the merits of his own
Most sacred Passion and Death,
Together with your sufferings
At the foot of the Cross;

And through the united efficacy of both,
Obtain the grant of my present petition.
To whom shall I have recourse
In my wants and miseries
If not to you, O Mother of Mercy,
Who, having so deeply drunk
Of the chalice of your Son,
An console with the sorrows
Of those who still sigh in the land of exile?

O Holy Mary,
Whose soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow
At the sight of the Passion
Of your Divine Son,
Intercede for me and obtain for me from Jesus

(mention the request)

If it be for His Honor and Glory
And the good of my soul.
Amen

The seven dolors (sorrows) of the Blessed Mother

1. The Prophecy of Simeon
2. The Flight into Egypt
3. The Loss of the Holy Child at Jerusalem
4. Mary meets Jesus Carrying the Cross
5. Mary witnesses the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
6. Mary Receives the Dead Body of Her Son
7. The Burial of Her Son and Closing of the Tomb.

 
Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen