“But!” you say, “I don’t feel like rejoicing!” It’s easy to get discouraged when you look ahead and wonder what’s in store. Before this pandemic many people already had enough difficulties in their life and were barely coping. As people of faith we are often expected to put on a happy face. C.S. Lewis once said “Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith: but these are afflictions not sins. Like all afflictions, they are our share in the passion of Christ.” We all have our share of difficulties and St. Aloysius Gonzaga says “There is no more evident sign that anyone is a saint than to see them leading a good life and at the same time a prey to desolation, suffering and trials.”
Approaching Mother’s Day, I had time to ponder what my own Mother meant to me. The most important thing she passed on was her faith and perseverance. Joan Chittister (a Benedictine sister) says “Life is made up of a series of defining moments. Moments of loss, risk, change, transformation, relationship and survival. The way we deal with these moments determine who and what we really are.” As Corrie ten Boom, the survivor of Auschwitz, said “Surrender to the Lord is not a tremendous sacrifice, not an agonizing performance. It is the most sensible thing you can do.”
The month of May is a time to think of Mary the greatest mother of all…our “Perpetual Help” and the one we have recourse to in the time of trial. She points us to Jesus as she stands at the foot of the cross. The Lily of the Valley is known as “Our lady’s tears” or Mary’s tears in reference to Christian legends concerning the Virgin’s tears at the crucifixion of her Son. According to the Old Farmers’ Almanac the Lily of the Valley signifies “sweetness, humility and happiness.”
As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:8 “We are afflicted (or pressured) in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair.”