Sorrow is source of solidarity

The Roman Catholic Lectionary today chooses texts to focus on the experience of sorrow in life which we endure by sharing in it with Jesus. The Letter to the Hebrews emphasizes the adherence of Jesus to the Hebrew tradition of chief priest who comes from the community and experiences life with all of the joy and sorrow, fear and faith and intimacy with God and separation from the Divine it contains. The Passion of Jesus is an intense experience of living, loving and confronting death. The Gospel of John today places Mary at the foot of the cross. John the Evangelist is understood in Christian tradition to have taken Mary to Ephesus after Jesus return to the Father. The heart of Mary is understood in Hebrew tradition as the centre of her thoughts. The prophet Simeon in the text from the Gospel of Luke voices the difficult struggle she will live in the depths of her being. Jesus, her son and Messiah, is also Son of the Father and the Lamb who dies for the sins of all. Friar Jude Winkler comments on the true difficulty for Mary, a devote Jew to reimage God. The deep sorrow of death of her son is a mystery without understanding. The proclamation of John concerning Mary is that she believed without understanding and her faith defeats the fears that the mystery of death bring to overpower the human heart. The additional symbolism of the episode from the Gospel of John, under the cross, according to Friar Jude, is the marriage of the disciples of Jesus, represented by John, to the Church, represented by Mary, to continue the mission of the dying Bridegroom, Jesus, to bring forth children, more disciples for God. We truly have a High Priest who shares in all our life.