Mary at the foot of the cross, in her heart-rending stabat that makes of her a bitter sea of anguish, is the highest expression in a human creature of heroism in every virtue. … The Desolate is meekness par excellence, gentle, poor to the point of losing her Son who is God, … the righteous one who does not complain when deprived of what was given her purely by election; the pure one in emotional detachment, tested to the utmost, from her Son who is God … In her is the triumph of the virtues of faith and hope through the charity that enflamed her throughout her life, and here set her ablaze as she participated in such a living way in the Redemption. …
Mary, in the desolation that clothed her with every virtue, furthermore will teach us to equip ourselves with patience, perseverance, simplicity and silence, so that in the night of what is human in us, there may shine out for the world the light of God dwelling within. … Mary of sorrows is the perfect saint, a monument of holiness towards whom all people may look in order to learn how to clothe themselves with that self-denial which the Church down the centuries has taught and which the saints with different notes have re-echoed through the ages.
We do not think enough about Mary’s “passion,” about the swords that pierced her Heart, about the terrible forsakenness she felt on Golgotha when Jesus entrusted her to others….
Perhaps the reason for this is that Mary knew all too well how to cover her living, tormented agony with sweetness, with light, and with silence.
And yet, there is no suffering similar to hers….
If one day our sufferings reach such depths that make everything inside us rebel because the fruit of our “passion” seems to be taken out of our hands and, moreover, from our heart, let’s remember her.
It will be this coldness that will make us a bit similar to her, and which will shape better in our souls the figure of Mary, the All-Beautiful, the Mother of all because by divine will she was detached from everyone, most of all, from her divine Son.
The Desolate is the Saint par excellence.
I would want to relive her in her mortification.
I would want to be capable of being alone with God like her, in the sense that, even in the midst of others, I feel drawn to make the whole of my life an intimate dialogue between my soul and God.
I must mortify words, thoughts, and actions that are outside the moment of God, in order to place them into the instant reserved for them.
The Desolate is certainty of sanctification, the perennial font of union with God, a cup overflowing with joy. The Desolate!
This is my “eureka!” Yes, I have found it. I have found the way.
(by Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings, p.139 and p.300)
