15 September 2025 – Our Lady of Sorrows
He 5,7-9 ; Lc 7,31-35 / Jn 19,25-27
H O M E L Y
Yesterday we celebrated the mystery of the Exaltation of the Glorious Cross. Today we celebrate Mary standing, full of sorrow – the sorrow of a mother – near the Cross where her Son dies.
The Cross, scandalous to Jews and foolishness to pagans, is the symbol and source of salvation for all who have faith. For Christians, it is the Cross of the risen Christ. We never celebrate a dead Christ. We celebrate a Christ who died for us and rose again and now sits with our humanity at the right hand of the Father. We know that Mary, His Mother, was also assumed into heaven and is there with her Son. However, we do not forget that Jesus went through suffering and death and that Mary accompanied Him on this path of pain.
The Letter to the Hebrews gives us a glimpse of the passion and suffering of Jesus and Mary. It reads: ‘Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became a source of salvation for all who obey Him.’
For Jesus, acceptance of the Cross was implicit in his first words: ‘Here I am, Father, to do your will’; and for Mary, acceptance of all her sufferings, caused by her Son's Cross, was a logical consequence of her first ‘Fiat’.
Obedience is a sacrifice that pleases God because it is the most perfect form of love. And this reminds us of one of the very important aspects of our monastic life. In this monastic life, we can encounter many forms of suffering. It can be physical as a result of illness; spiritual as a result of inner conflicts; emotional or affective as a result of misunderstandings, etc. But ultimately, the most constant and important way in which we participate in the sufferings of Christ is through our daily obedience: ‘even though He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered, and having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.’
At the beginning of his Rule, Saint Benedict says that he wrote it for those who, having turned away from God through the sloth of disobedience, wish to return to Him through the labor of obedience. Everything we do in the monastery—prayer, work, lectio, etc.—we could do outside, in the world. Monastic life consists in doing all this in a community, under a common rule and an abbot (which is the definition that the Rule gives of coenobitic life).
Obedience is always, ultimately, obedience to God. But in our monastic life, it is realized and manifested in obedience to a common rule and to a superior who, for this reason, is seen by Benedict as a sacrament of Christ's presence in the community. These are simple mediations for discovering God's will; but ultimately, it is always God alone whom we obey. And through all the daily manifestations of what Benedict calls the ‘labor of obedience’, we are united with Christ and His Mother who, after passing through suffering, are now at the right hand of God the Father.
***
Today, in our diocese (Tournai), we celebrate the feast of Saint Eleuthere, patron of the Diocese.
Armand VEILLEUX