Father, you entrusted your Son to me by your Spirit. And as I have given him back to you daily and hourly, I give him back to you now once more, knowing that his suffering is nothing other than the expression of your grace, the expression of your love.
It is hard to understand. I do not understand it at all. And yet I know that I must give precisely this, that you require it in this way. And I ask you: Take your son out of my hands -- for he is my Son -- and take at one and the same time everything I myself have given him and which in this farewell hour bears only the name of pain and grief. Take it, dispose of it, let my suffering become as heavy as you will, I know (your Son has taught me this) that this is how I must pray in this hour.
Mary on the Way of the Cross,
Prayer to the Father
by Adrienne von Speyr
in With God and With Men
Here Our Lady plainly states that she does not understand…but she knows. She knows, she says, because Her Son has taught her. Her Son! Jesus, whom as a little child she taught to pray -- the Word, who learned from her lips verses from the Sacred Scriptures, especially those so dear to her heart -- the young man, who increased in wisdom and favor with God and man while living a humble life in Nazareth and being obedient to Mary and Joseph. This Son, her one and only Son, who took flesh in her womb when she uttered "Be it done unto me" has taught his mother to surrender everything with him in his prayer of total abandonment, "Father, Into your hands." Mary's suffering is heavy indeed as she meets her beloved Son climbing the mount of lovers. Her suffering will become even heavier as she kneels at the foot of His cross, utterly bereft as she receives the body of her dead child. She does not understand...but she knows...
Virgin of all virgins best,
Listen to my fond request
Let me share thy grief divine.
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