From Our Lady of Sorrows to St. Padre Pio

Today as we finish our novena to Our Lady, the ninth day coincides with the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows and launches us into the middle portion of our triple novena.

Just as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross yesterday emphasized the Triumph of the Cross and Our Lord's victory, through the cross, over death, so today this Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows can be a sign for us of the Triumph of Joy over Sorrow, the victory of Our Lord's consolation over Our Lady's (and our) sadness. Since our little brother Marcel Van had a Christmas miracle in which Our Lord showed him that his mission would be to turn suffering into joy, he is very excited about our musings today. In the words of Truth Himself:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Looking for, and asking St. Anthony and Padre Pio to help me find, a reflection on Our Lady of Sorrows, I stumbled upon one of my favorite passages from my Holy Mother St. Teresa of Jesus, from her Relation IV, "Of the Graces the Saint Received in Salamanca at the End of Lent, 1571." She writes:

'After Communion, I saw Our Lord most distinctly close beside me; and He began to comfort me with great sweetness, and said to me, among other things: "Thou beholdest Me present, My daughter - it is I. Show Me thy hands." And He seemed to take them and put them into His side, and said, "Behold My wounds; thou art not without Me. Finish the short course of thy life." By some things He said to me, I understood that, after His Ascension, He never came down to the earth except in the most Holy Sacrament to communicate Himself to any one. He said to me that when He rose again He showed Himself to Our Lady because she was in great trouble; for sorrow had so pierced her soul that she did not even recover herself at once in order to have the fruition of that joy. By this I saw how different was my piercing. But what must that of the Virgin have been? He remained long with her then because it was necessary to console her.'

What tremendous words, what a tremendous fact to be pondered in our hearts:
"He remained long with her then because it was necessary to console her."

From this I gather that the depth of Our Lady's sorrow called to the depth of Our Lord's compassionate love and tenderness, deep calling on deep. And this is exactly what happens between each of us and our Beloved Jesus. Our suffering, too, calls to His compassion, and He who is God who is love, He will spend as long as it takes to dry our tears and console our sad hearts. One way we can practice letting Him comfort us is by spending the first decade of the glorious mysteries of the Rosary, the Resurrection, with Mary as Jesus embraces and comforts her, letting her rest on His pierced side and stroking her hair as she so often stroked His when He was a child.

Dear Blessed Mother, you understand suffering and consolation; hear our prayers:

Blessed Mother of those whose names you can read in my heart, watch over them with every care. Make their way easy and their labors fruitful. Dry their tears if they weep; sanctify their joys; raise their courage if they weaken; restore their hope if they lose heart, their health if they be ill, truth if they err, and repentance if they fall. Amen.

*    *    *

Having finished our first novena, it's time to begin our second. One can't get through a triple novena without a bit of a whirlwind, and now we launch from Our Lady's arms into Padre Pio's lap! He is waiting for us, waiting for us to ask him again to be our spiritual father so that he can shepherd us, and all those we love, safely into our Eternal Home. Here then is our prayer leading to September 23rd, St. Padre Pio's feast day:

O Blessed Padre Pio,
holy bearer of the wounds of Christ,
accept us this day as your spiritual sons and daughters
and keep us always on the Little Way by your intercession.
Do thou, dear Spiritual Father,
relieve our suffering and the suffering of those we love,
and then stay there at the Gates of Heaven as you promised,
until all of your spiritual children have entered through,
even and including us and all those we love.
Through Christ our Lord, Amen.

If this prayer gets a little long over the next nine days, feel free to simplify it like this:

Dear Padre Pio, I recall your promise to the Lord, “I will stand at the gates of heaven until I see all my spiritual children have entered.” Encouraged by your gracious promise, I ask you to accept me as your spiritual child, and in doing so please accept too all those I love, just as you said you would.

I love these prayers because they merely remind the gentle giant of his promises. A friend recently told me of a wonderful book called A Father Who Keeps His Promises by Scott Hahn. Padre Pio, who bore the stigmata, is not only an image of Our sweet wounded Jesus, but he is also a reflection (as is St. Joseph, first and foremost) of the Heavenly Father. Like both our Heavenly Father and His Incarnate Son, Padre Pio is absolutely a father who keeps his promises. By trusting the good Padre, we can take a big step along St. Therese's Little Way of complete surrender into the Father's arms. We can practice on Padre Pio while we pray our way through one more novena toward our triple novena goal.

One last musing on Our Lady of Sorrows: I realize now that St. Paul's exhortation and explanation to the Corinthians (from the beginning of this second letter to them) is perfectly fulfilled in Mary. I can even hear her tell it to us herself, once again magnifying the Lord:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who has comforted us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves were comforted by God. For as we shared abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we were afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffered. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Draw me; we will run!