The Marian and Christian Way
This child of yours is destined for the rise and fall of many Jerusalem.
And you, yourself, your heart, a sword will pierce.
Joseph and Mary did everything according to the dictates of the law.
Today, it reminds us that they fulfilled
their obligation of purification and bringing Jesus forward.
That would mark both Mary and Joseph’s life, but also Jesus' life.
He did everything according to the law.
And yet, Jesus suffered terribly throughout his life,
to the point of death on a cross; a brutal, humiliating way to die.
And Mary herself suffered greatly.
I am not sure which is harder actually,
to suffer our own pain or to watch somebody you love suffer.
I think watching somebody you love suffer is harder
because you feel so powerless.
I am sure many of you have experienced
your parents get sick and get old,
get very, very fragile and suffer greatly.
Or maybe a child is even harder to watch,
to watch your own child suffer
and to be so helpless in that moment.
Mary watched her son suffer greatly.
This prediction by the prophet Simeon is very real.
The climax of that suffering for her was at the foot of the cross.
Now, we have to examine this
because it is very important how Mary suffered.
It was not just that she suffered
but how she suffered and gave witness to us.
In life it is not what happens to us that defines us,
but how we react to what happens to us
that is truly what defines us.
And here is what Mary does.
Mary, at the foot of the cross,
does not fall down, broken on her knees, collapse to the ground,
broken by this act of violence, this terrible injustice.
No, she does not.
The way it is recorded is that
she stands at the foot of the cross.
Remember standing is a sign of strength.
To say you will not break me.
So she stood at the foot of the cross
and embraced that suffering and made sure her son
could see her until his last breath.
That that is a model of how to suffer.
And what is it she is doing?
She is standing defiant in the ugliness,
the violence, the hatred, the divisiveness of this moment,
and the utter ugliness of this moment.
She stands defiant and quiet.
She absorbs in all that hatred of the world
and looks upon her son with love.
And her son looks back with that same love
and gives her to John the beloved disciple.
In that we have a model for our own suffering
and that it is to not allow the suffering in our life,
which does come in many different ways,
sometimes in more ways than we care, to define us.
In that suffering, we stand defiant.
Ron Rolheiser has a beautiful way of saying this.
He says that we are called to be like a water purifier.
We take in all the hatred, the bitterness, the anger,
the frustration, the unforgiveness and the war.
Then we absorb it inside of ourselves, we purify it
and we give back the pure water of kindness,
gentleness, forgiveness, love, and in the end, peace.
That is our role.
Our role is to stand defiant in the eyes of injustice,
to stand up for those who are broken,
those who are wounded, those who are pushed to the side of society,
to stand up to the injustice and
to transform that injustice into,
into kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, and love and peace.
But what happens to us is only part of the story.
The real story of discipleship is how we react to what happens to us.
This is where the first reading from the prophet Malachi,
where we hear a different metaphor, comes in.
It is the metaphor of a silver refiner, of a gold refiner.
I do not know if you know how silver or gold is purified.
They are heated up to a melting point
and then all the impurities bubble up to the top.
And then the the refiner just skims off all the impurities on top.
And then you have left is pure silver and pure gold.
What Malachi is saying to us is that we will be tested,
that we will be put into this fire of the refiner.
And in that fire, all the impurities of our life
will rise to the top and be skimmed off.
We must allow that to happen for us to enter into the kingdom of God.
It is a powerful way of looking at how trials and sufferings
and, if you would, these tests in our life can purify us.
So that is what we do when suffering happens,
not what suffering does to us,
but how we react to suffering in our own life.
Now, as I said earlier, it is harder to watch somebody else
that whom we love to suffer
than it is for ourselves to suffer.
But that is what we are called to do as disciples
and that is what we do as community.
When we love one another,
we are willing to be there for their lowest and hardest moment.
If you have ever been at a moment
when somebody in your life has been dying or is very sick,
there is no need for words, there is only a need for loving presence.
That is what they yearn for, the assurance of our loving presence.
You see, that is the Marian Way.
It is the Christian Way.
That is what Mary did for Christ.
It is what Christ did.
It is the Christian way and it is the disciple’s way.
What you and I are called to do is to stand
with those who are broken, those who are in fear.
At that moment, maybe those are
some of the immigrants in our community who are fearful today,
now for their life.
Maybe it is for those who are broken and wounded
through some fault of their own
or maybe not the fault of their own,
that they are in broken in marriage.
Maybe they are broken in body,
maybe they are broken in mind.
But we are called to stand with them,
to stand and to take in all the ugliness
and the bitterness and the war of life,
and to absorb it, transform it, and
give back love, give back peace, give back gentleness and kindness.
That is the Marian way.
It is the Christian way.
It is our way.
Every one of us is called to walk that way
and to follow the dictates of the law.
This child of yours is destined for the rise and fall of many Jerusalem.
And you, yourself, your heart, a sword will pierce.