“Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah.” (Luke 1:39).
The other day I found myself in the unfortunate situation of having to watch as someone who I love very much was treated very unfairly by someone else.
It was a very confronting situation. It is one thing – after all – to know that those people who we love will experience injustice in their lives, and quite another to listen to false accusations and the abuse of those we love by people who have no right to treat them in this way.
And when I witnessed this episode, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness. And this feeling was so significant that it rose inside me and caused me to feel terrible distress…
And I have been reflecting on that feeling over the last few weeks, because it has reminded me of the complete powerlessness I have in the world.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we are told about Christ healing the sick… When Christ performed His miracles, we are told – in the Gospels – of all the times that the sick came to Him (either alone or carried by their friends) and Christ DID THINGS to help them. “…The sick try to touch Him, ‘for power came forth from Him and healed them all’.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1504).
And it was this movement – this effort to DO SOMETHING – that alleviates some of the suffering when we are seeking healing because this MOVEMENT in seeking Christ generates HOPE.
And as I reflect on this, it has occurred to me to reflect on my Blessed Mother – who bore seven sorrows in her immaculate heart. For – even in her greatest sorrow – she did not reach out to God for healing. Instead, she stayed exactly where God set her, and she felt the pain – she lived it... And she sat there in perfect stillness – neither trying to reach out nor pull back. And there is something so miraculous in this perfect stillness of the Blessed Virgin, because it is one thing to imagine such stillness in theory and quite another thing to realise how entrenched in the practicalities of life such stillness was. For her stillness translated to a complete surrender to God’s Holy Will.
You see, the Blessed Virgin was still when she was told by the Angel to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who had conceived a child in her old age. Immediately, the Virgin took her own shocked, pregnant body out on a journey of some distance and at some inconvenience to herself, and she did this being perfectly still inside the Holy Will of God. There was dust on the road, and bandits and wild animals, and she was tired perhaps and a little sick from her pregnancy, and still she travelled out in stillness - in silence.
And the Blessed Virgin did this – in stillness – immediately after the INCARNATION. I mean there she was, a young teenage girl, and God came into her and she conceived God. All in a second. There she was – completely at one with God, perfectly attuned to his Holy Will – a literal SPOUSE OF GOD. And there – right there in that moment, what did she do? Did she run out into the street to tell her friends and neighbours what had happened to her? Did she call her mother inside and tell her the news? Did she sit down and write a journal entry so that she would never forget this moment? Did she pinch herself because it seemed too amazing to be true? Did she take an afternoon to reflect on her life and the things she had witnessed?
No. She waited in perfect stillness while the Angel told her to go to the Hill Country of Judah to help her cousin, Elizabeth, who had conceived a child in her old age. And IMMEDIATELY she leapt up and went… “Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah.” (Luke 1:39).
For my Blessed Mother knows how to be still and do nothing and remain at peace. For there is a time for action and a time for stillness… And she was perfect at both… For though she ministers to her children in the Church, she also stood at the foot of the Cross… For she trusts in the Mission of God where “On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the ‘sin of the world’, of which illness is only a consequence. By His passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to Him and unite us with His redemptive Passion.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1505).
And in stillness the Blessed Virgin comforts me, even when I am distressed at being unable to act to help someone who I love – for she knows such discomfort – having stood in stillness at the foot of the Cross…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.