Mary, Consoler of the Afflicted, Mary: Day 149

Mary, Consoler of the Afflicted

Blessed John Henry Newman explains that Mary can console us in adversity because she herself has suffered affliction. She knows especially the hardships of dealing with difficult people.

St. Paul says that his Lord comforted him in all his tribulations, so that he also might be able to comfort those who are in distress, by the encouragement which he received from God (see 2 Cor 1:4). This is the secret of true consola- tion: Those are able to comfort others who, in their own case, have been much tried, and have felt the need of consolation, and have received it. So of our Lord himself it is said: “In that he himself hath suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those also that are tempted” (see Heb 2:18).

This too is why the Blessed Virgin is the comforter of the afflicted. We all know how special a mother’s consolation is, and we are allowed to call Mary our mother from the time that our Lord from the Cross established the relation of mother and son between her and St. John. And she especially can console us because she suffered more than mothers in general.

After our Lord’s ascension, she was sent out into foreign lands almost as the apostles were, a sheep among wolves. In spite of all St. John’s care of her, which was as great as was St. Joseph’s in her younger days, more than all the saints of God she was a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth, in proportion to her greater love of him who had been on earth, and had gone away. Just as, when our Lord was an infant, she had to flee across the desert to the pagan Egypt; so when he had ascended on high, she had to go on shipboard to the pagan city of Ephesus, where she lived and died.

You who are in the midst of rude neighbors or scoffing companions, or of wicked acquaintances, or of spiteful enemies, and are helpless: Invoke the aid of Mary by the memory of her own sufferings among the pagan Greeks and the pagan Egyptians. —Blessed John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Do I face adversity “in the midst of rude neighbors or scoffing companions, or of wicked acquaintances, or of spiteful enemies”? Do I seek comfort in the pres- ence and help of Mary, my consoling mother?

CLOSING PRAYER
From “Thirty Days’ Prayer to the Blessed Virgin”: Hope and comfort of dejected and desolate souls, you are the mother of mercies, the sweet consoler and only refuge of the needy and the orphan, of the desolate and afflicted.

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