Saturday - day of Our Lady

The life of Jesus before His Passion

Mary speaketh: I have spoken to thee of my dolors; but that dolor was not the least which I experienced when I bore my Son in my flight to Egypt, and when I heard the innocents slaughtered, and Herod pursuing my Son. But although I knew what was written of my Son, yet my heart, for the excessive love I bore my Son, was filled with grief and sadness. You may perhaps ask what my Son did all that time of His life before His Passion. I reply that, as the Gospel says, He was subject to His parents, and He acted like other children till He reached His majority. Nor were wonders wanting in His youth: how idols were silenced, and fell in numbers in Egypt at His coming; how the Wise Men foretold that my Son should be a sign of great things to come; how, too, the ministers of angels appeared; how too, no uncleanness appeared upon Him, nor entanglement in His hair, all which it is unnecessary for thee to know, as signs of His divinity and humanity are set forth in the Gospel, which may edify thee and others. But when He came to more advanced years, He was in constant prayer, and obediently went up with us to Jerusalem and elsewhere to the appointed feasts; so wonderful then were His sight and words, and so acceptable, that many in affliction said: "Let us go to Mary's Son, by whom we may be consoled." But increasing in age and wisdom, wherewith He was replete from the first, He laboured with His hands in such things as are becoming, and spoke to us separately words of consolation and divinity, so that we were continually filled with unspeakable joy. But when we were in fear, poverty, and difficulty, He did not make for us gold and silver, but exhorted us to patience, and we were wonderfully preserved from the envious. Necessaries were occasionally furnished to us by the compassion of pious souls, sometimes from our own labour, so that we had what was necessary for our actual support, but not for superfluity, for we only sought to serve God. After this, He conversed familiarly with friends who came to the house, on the law, and its meanings and figures; He also openly disputed with the learned, so that they wondered, saying: "Ho! Joseph's Son teaches the masters; some great spirit speaketh in Him." Once as I was thinking of His Passion, seeing my sadness, He said: "Dost thou not believe, Mother, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? Wast thou sullied when I entered thee, or in pain when I came forth? Why art thou contracted by sadness? For it is the will of My Father that I suffer death; nay, My will with the Father. What I have of the Father cannot suffer; but the flesh which I took of thee shall suffer, that the flesh of others may be redeemed, and their spirits saved." He was so obedient that when Joseph by chance said: Do this or that, He immediately did it, because He so concealed the power of His divinity that it sould not be discerned excepth by me, adn sometimes Joseph, who both often saw an admirable light poured around Him, and heard angelic voices singing over Him. We also saw that unclean spirits, which could not be expelled by tried exorcists in our law, departed at the sight of my Son's presence.

The picture is of Our Lady of Mt Carmel.

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Saturday - Day of Our Lady

The Purification

I did not need purification, like other women, because my Son who was born of me made me clean. Nor did I contract the least stain, who bore my most pure Son without any stain. Nevertheless, the law and the prophecies might be fulfilled, I chose to live according to the law. Nor did I live like wordly parents, but humbly conversed with the humble. Nor did I wish to show anything extraordinary in me, but loved whatever was humble. On that day as today was my pain increased. For though, by divine inspiration, I knew that my Son was to suffer, yet this grief pierced my heart more keenly at Simeon's words, when he said that a sword should pierce my soul, and that my Son should be set for a sigh to be contradicted. And until I was assumed in body and soul to Heaven, this grief never left my heart, although it was tempered by the consolation of the spirit of God. I also wish you to know that from that day my grief was sixfold. The first was in my knowledge: for every time that I looked upon my Son, wrapped Him in His swaddling clothes, or gazed upon His hands and feet, so often was my soul swallowed up, as it were, by fresh grief, for I thought how He was to be crucified. In the second place, there was pain in my hearing: for as often as I heard the opprobriums heaped on my Son, the falsehood uttered against Him, the snares laid upon Him, my soul was so afflicted that I could scarcely contain myself; but by the power of God, my grief knew bounds and respect, so that no impatience or levity was seen in me. In the third place, I suffered by sight: for when I beheld my Son bound and scourged, and suspended on the cross, I fell, as it were, lifeless; but recovering myself, I stood mourning and suffering patiently, that neither my enemies nor any other beheld anything but gravity in me. My fourth suffering was in the touch: for I with others took my Son down from the cross, wrapped Him up, and laid Him in the tomb; and thus my grief increased, so that my hands and feet had scarce strength to bear me. Oh, how gladly would I then have been laid beside my Son! Fifthly, I suffered by a vehement desire of joining my Son after he ascended to Heaven, because the long delay which I had in this world, after His Ascension, increased my grief. Sixthly, I suffered from the tribulations of the Apostles and friends of God, ever feeling and grieving: fearing that they might yield to temptations and tribulations, grieving because my Son's words were everywhere contradicted. but through the grace of God persevered in me, and my will always conformed to the will of God, yet my grief was constantly mingled with consolation, till I was assumed, body and soul, to my Son in Heaven. Let not, then, this grief leave my heart, for without tribulation few would reach heaven (Lib.6, ch.57).

Picture of Our Lady was taken in the chapel of Marist Sisters Monastery in Nympsfield, Glos. UK

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