The Sorrows that come with following Christ

It is coincidental, and a bit unfortunate, that the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time falls on the same day as the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. This means the feast will not be celebrated in most of the Catholic world, as the Sunday takes precedence.  However, this Sunday’s readings and the readings for this feast together point to what it means to know Jesus Christ and to follow him. To know him, as both these readings will show, is to embrace suffering and sorrow for his sake.

In this Sunday’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah talks about what he has suffered by proclaiming God’s message. Like Christ, he patiently endures beatings, physical abuse, and insults from the Israelites for urging them to turn away from their sins. All sin, of course, started with our first parents, Adam and Eve. In the first reading for the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, they had just committed the first sin of disobedience against God. First judging the serpent who tempted them, God promises that a woman and her child will defeat him by crushing his head (Gen 3:15). While this is a clear reference to the triumph of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her son, Jesus, over evil, people often forget how the next part of that verse relates to their shared suffering:

“... and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15).

These readings underscore the gravity of sin and remind us that Christ's redemption, and Mary's participation in it, required terrible suffering. But this suffering won our redemption because it was done for God’s sake and ours. We too can offer up our sufferings for God and others – this is a manifestation of our faith.

Most of us are familiar with this Sunday’s second reading. Saint James the Less explains a truth that Christians of other denominations often misunderstand: “So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Jas 2:17). If we had faith in God, we would act like we had faith in God. Christ and his mother exemplify this for us. They obeyed God even amid tremendous personal suffering. The second reading for the feast says this about Christ:

“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8).

For the Christians who claim that we are saved by faith alone, it is crucial to understand that even Jesus' faith in God the Father was shown through His works, culminating in His sacrificial death.

“... so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me” (John 14:31).

In the Gospel this Sunday, Saint Peter professes Jesus as the Messiah. Later in the Gospel, Jesus preaches to the apostles of his death, the essence of his mission as the Christ. After rebuking Peter for dissuading him from completing his mission, he tells his disciples that to follow him is to suffer with him:

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it" (Mk 8: 34-35).

No one followed the Lord Jesus better than his mother, Mary. As many of us know, the Sorrows of Mary are seven in number: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the finding of Jesus in the temple, her meeting with Jesus on his way to the cross, her seeing the death of Jesus on the cross, her receiving his dead body from the cross, and his burial in the tomb.

Our Lady of Sorrows is the perfect example of this kind of discipleship. Let us look to her as our inspiration to live lives of self-sacrifice. In the Gospel for her feast yesterday, Simeon prophesizes that her sword will be pierced by a sword. Those who follow her and her son will have their share of swords and crosses to bear. However, if these are offered to God on behalf of others, they will bear much fruit, and will ultimately gain for them eternal life.