Station IV

Station IV: Jesus meets His Blessed Mother

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Reading:

To what can I liken you, to what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What likeness can I use to comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For vast as the sea is your ruin. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

A sword will pierce your own soul also:
And fill your heart with bitter pain.

Reflection: Tears of Motherly Love

Motherhood pierces the soul, from the imaginings of pregnancy to the first glimpses of the perfect, small human form emerging into our lives. We are pierced with the profundity of life, the fragility and resilience of humanity, the wonder of the divine miracle of birth. Mary has felt these piercings of her soul, from the moment she is made aware of this child she has conceived, to the words that she held in her heart at Jesus’ birth, to the echoing prophecy when Jesus was presented at the temple and recognized by Anna and Simeon whose eyes had now seen salvation. I imagine these words were merely confirmation of the truth which had already taken residence in her soul. So much love. So much pain. And in this station we encounter Holy Mary, her heart pierced again unfathomably as she meets her child on this journey to the cross and can speak only the profound truth that she knows: “my son, my God.”

Closing Prayer:

O God, who willed that in the passion of your Son a sword of grief should pierce the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary his mother: Mercifully grant that your Church, having shared with her in his passion, may be made worthy to share in the joys of his resurrection; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

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