Happy Friday friends,
And a happy feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the day after the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, when we “celebrate” in our distinctly Catholic way, the suffering of Our Lady at the foot of the cross.
“Celebrating sorrow” is one of those quasi-oxymoronic formulations the practice of our faith can sometimes seem to throw up. But really I don’t think it’s so. Love is always, I think, bound up with a measure of sorrow – for Our Lady the terrible love of a mother for her suffering son and, we are assured, for all of us her children.
In many ways, at least this side of heaven, to love is to suffer, at least some of the time. But we celebrate in our sorrow, and celebrate the sorrowful love of Mary at the foot of the cross for Christ and for us, because our love is grounded in the sure hope in the resurrection.
Love, suffering, sorrow, and hope are much on my mind today. In the small hours of the morning a very dear family friend died after a long,…
