Lamentation, Rogier Van der Weyden; 1441

FROM Fr. Frederick William Faber’s At the Foot of the Cross:

NOWHERE in the Old Testament do we seem to come so near to God as in the book of Job. Nowhere is He more awfully enshrouded in mystery, or more terrible in His counsels regarding the children of men; and yet nowhere is He more plainly or more tenderly our Father. It is because the mystery of suffering is depicted therein. Because it is all so human, it seems to lead us so far into the Divine. Because it is the uttermost trial of the creature, he lies the more completely in the Creator’s arms. The calamities of Job are to the Old Testament what the Passion of our Lord is to the New, and the one was an intentional foreshadowing of the other. When we come to speak of our Lady’s dolors, we remember the touching picture of Job’s friends, when they heard of his afflictions and came to visit him. “When they had lifted up their eyes afar off, they knew him not, and crying out they wept, and rending their garments, they sprinkled dust upon their heads toward Heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no man spoke to him a word; for they saw that his grief was very great.” They knew that silence was the best consolation. There was nothing which could so touch the heart of the mourner, as the fact that his friends appreciated the excess of his bereavement. When at last they spoke, then they irritated. The charm of their sweet silent presence was gone. Sympathy degenerated into an argument. An unconvincing argument could end only in reproach. They, more than Job himself, “wrapped up sentences in unskillful words.” But still more wonderful than this silence of the friends of Job was the silence of Jesus on the Cross, deeply suffering a distinct inward martyrdom because of the sorrows of His Mother. He spoke no word to her, but that one whereby He made her over to St. John. No maxim full of celestial wisdom, no tone of filial endearment, no acknowledgment that He saw and felt her sufferings, no blessing full of grace and fortitude, fell on her ear as He hung upon the Cross. In truth, she needed none of them. She saw His Heart. She understood her Son. She was by this time marvelously accustomed to the ways of God. Silence was His devotion to her sorrows, just as silence was the magnificence. of her suffering. Silence was in truth a wonderful thing with Jesus and Mary. Indeed, it was almost the colloquy they had held together for Three-and-Thirty Years. But His silence was the silence of a full heart; and it is somewhat of that fulness which we must ask of Him when we meditate on His Mother’s sorrows. We cannot think rightly of them, unless He vouchsafes to help us to the truth. All we ask is one spark of what burned in Him during those silent hours: one spark would be enough to set our hearts on fire. and consume us with keenest love for the remainder of our mortal years. He must be our model in sympathy with Mary, as He is in all things else. Like all the rest of sanctity, it is He Himself Who taught devotion to our Lady. both by precept and example.

For Good Friday reflections on Mary’s role in the Passion, see Dr. Thomas Droleskey’s commentary here.

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