The hour is at hand, “his hour”.
In the life of Christ our Lord here on this earth,
this is the hour for which he came
into the world.

The Passion
is a historic event
and also a mystery of love.

It is renewed in the Church
and made accessible to each of us
in the sacrifice of the Mass.

Everything is love in this Third Week of the Exercises; it is a love that is excessive, infinite, really altogether too much for our understanding. This is why we must accept this revelation from the heart of God and let ourselves be open to the mysteries of the Passion and death of Jesus with utmost simplicity. This comes from nothing less than complete faith in God’s goodness and power. Only God can love us—can love me—to the point of suffering and dying for us—for me—in such a way.

Place yourself in God’s presence and make the preparatory prayer.
Ask him to inspire you.

I will call to mind the history of the mystery. Christ our Lord sent two apostles from Bethany to Jerusalem to prepare the Passover meal. Later he and the other apostles came up to join the two. After eating the paschal lamb according to the rituals prescribed by Moses, he washed the apostles’ feet, instituted the Holy Eucharist, and for a long time spoke with his apostles “as one friend to another”.

Composition of Place

I will see the road that leads from Bethany up to Jerusalem. Then I will imagine the Cenacle, the place where the Last Supper takes place: “an upstairs room,” St. Mark writes, “spacious, furnished, and all in order” (Mark 14:15).

I will ask for what I want and desire. Here it is sorrow, compassion, shame, because the Lord is going to his Passion for my sins.

First Point: The Last Supper

I look at Jesus. He is totally aware of the symbolism of the Passover in the old law; it was simply the prefiguration of what will happen to him tonight and tomorrow. The final hour for the world has come. God’s plan, wrought from pure goodness and love, “the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ”, is about to be accomplished (Eph 1:9). Man will again “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). The world will be reconciled with God and with itself. The New Covenant will be entered into and will last forever.

Let us admire the carefulness of Christ our Lord to fulfill the Scriptures and tie in the Old Testament with the New.

Let us contemplate and feel deeply in ourselves his tremendous desire: “I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). What love for his Father and for us! Oh, Eucharist!

He speaks of the Kingdom of God, his Kingdom: “I tell you I shall not eat the Passover again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. . . . I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the coming of the reign of God” (Luke 22:16–17).

Second Point: The Washing of the Feet

A gesture of the greatest significance because of the solemnity of the moment.

(1) The Church of Jesus Christ will be a hierarchical Church, but he gives an unprecedented meaning to hierarchy, to authority:

The apostles are caught up in a dispute about the Kingdom of heaven: “An argument also began between them about who should be reckoned the greatest.”

Jesus said, “No, the greatest among you must behave as if he were the youngest, the leader as if he were the one who serves” (Luke 22:24–26).
“Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest” (Mark 10:43).

“And whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all” (Matt 20:27).

He himself has given the example: “Such is the case with the Son of Man who has come not to be served by others but to serve, to give his own life as a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28).

Now he joins what he says with what he does: “He rose from the meal and took off his cloak. He picked up the towel and tied it around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel he had around him” (John 13:4-5).

What a revolution in the concept of a community and the role played by its chief and leader!

(2) The conversation between Judas and Peter:

Yes, Jesus has washed the feet of Judas. With what tenderness and consideration! He has already stated on a number of occasions that he was aware of Judas’ intentions. But the traitor set his face against him. Finally, Jesus told him, “Be quick about what you are to do”, and Judas left. In reporting the scene St. John uses an astounding expression: “It was night”. Night!—outside, or in the heart of the traitor (John 13:17-30)?

Jesus also washes the feet of Peter. At first Peter refuses: “Never! You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus had to convince him with a decisive argument: “If I do not wash you, you can have no share with me.” (Mecum!) And Peter gives the response of the insignes: “Well, then, Lord, not only my feet but my hands and my head as well!” (John 13:6-8). To be with Jesus one must be ready to be with him all the way. Generous Peter is, but not sinless!

Third Point: Jesus Institutes the Eucharist and the Priesthood

(1) Let us reread the admirable account of what takes place next either in 1 Corinthians 11:17-30, to which we should add 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, or in one of the Synoptics (Luke 22; Mark 14; Matt 26)—or the words of the canons in our missal.

In order to understand the correct and literal sense of the Eucharist, it would be good to reread chapter 6 in St. John’s Gospel: “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst. . . . It is my Father’s will that whoever sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and that I should raise that person up on the Last Day . . . and the bread I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world. . . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in that person.” Now listen to those who hear him on this occasion murmur, see them walking away . . . and repeat with St. Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe.”

(2) The whole structural meaning of the Old Testament is summed up here (Heb 8 to 10). The priesthood comes into being.

(3) Let us meditate with feeling on John’s expression: “He had loved his own in the world and would show his love for them to the end” (John 13:1). In finem dilexit eos: He loved them to the end, to the extremity of his infinite love. This is how he loved me: Dilexit me.

In finem: to the end.

— Here is where the Incarnation and the thematic development of his love reach their fulfillment.

— Here is where the self-abasement of Christ our Lord is realized. The eucharistic state!

— Here the redemption is accomplished because through the Eucharist Christ promises to go to the limits of the Passion, all the way to the Resurrection.

— Here is fulfilled the Mosaic law and here begins (reaches its completion) the new law. Jesus will soon begin his “last discourse” with the new commandment of fraternal charity, and he will develop God’s new plan, the “restored” plan “mirabilis reformasti”.
— Here the sint unum—that they may be one—of the priestly prayer reaches completion. Through the Eucharist the Church is already established.

And everything the Eucharist means for Christ, it means for the priest.

How the Divinity hides itself. “Oh, hidden God, I adore you!”
I will converse with Christ our Lord. Many things I have to talk to him about here: adoration, faith, thanksgiving. May what he asked for in his “last discourse” and his “sacerdotal prayer” be realized through me.

I will end my contemplation with the Our Father. What meaning the Lord’s prayer takes on here, in the upper room, this evening!“

Every event that takes place during the Passion actually encompasses all the other events. For this reason let us follow more closely than ever before St. Ignatius’ advice: “I will remain quietly meditating upon the point in which I have found what I desire, without any eagerness to go on until I have been satisfied.”

Place yourself in the presence of God and make the prayer beginning the meditation.
Ask him to inspire you.

I will recall first of all the history of what is covered in this meditation. Christ our Lord went down from Mount Zion (where he had eaten the Last Supper with his twelve apostles) toward the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and then up toward the Garden of Olives. He leaves eight of the apostles just outside the Garden; the remaining three — Peter, James, and John — he brings with him into the Garden. Then, leaving these three, he goes more deeply into the olive groves, where he begins to pray. During his prayer his sweat becomes like drops of blood. After having prayed three times to his Father, he wakes up the three disciples. His enemies make their appearance, Judas leading them on. Judas gives him a kiss of peace. St. Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, and Jesus heals the wound. They arrest him as if he were a bandit. Next they drag him down to the valley and then up the opposite hill to Jerusalem and to the house of Annas.
Composition of Place

See the two roads. The first is the short road going from Mount Zion down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. From the valley rise up two hills. On the slopes of the eastern one is the Mount of Olives. It faces the western hill, where Mount Zion is located and where, behind, the walls of Jerusalem are visible. Then there is the road from the walls to the house of Annas.

I will ask for what I want and desire. Here it is proper to ask for sorrow with Christ in sorrow, anguish with Christ in anguish, interior grief because of the great sufferings Christ endures for me.

First Point: What Is at Stake in the Struggle of Christ Our Lord

What is at stake is his “glorious freedom as a Son of God”, the filial adherence of his will to the will of the Father, his love, his total and definitive Yes to the Father.

Here Jesus is faced with the essential act that must be accomplished to complete the Father’s plan of love, the plan the prophets prophesied without fully understanding its meaning: “They investigated the times and the circumstances that the Spirit of Christ within them was pointing to, for he predicted the sufferings destined for Christ and the glories that would follow” (I Pet 1:11). This is the profound mystery the angels watched in astonishment.

Jesus is alone during his struggle. When he arrived in Gethsemane, he told his eight apostles, “Stay here while I go over there to pray”. A little later he said to Peter, James, and John, “Wait here and stay awake with me” (Matt 26:37-39). A terrible sense of loneliness. He will scarcely be able to stand it; three times he will return to those who were supposed to watch with him . . . they slept . . . yes, indeed, he is alone, completely alone!

He sees before him the world of sin, and he sees also divine love, misunderstood and scorned . . . sins of every age . . . sins of every person. Or better: he sees sinful human nature, torn away from the Father, enslaved to the “Prince of Darkness”.
He feels the malice, the total perversity of this sin in the world—this evil that we cannot grasp with our reason and that goes far beyond our understanding—but he is able to measure it against the Father’s overabundant love because he has always known the heart of the Father.

He knows that only an excessive redemption (his Passion) or an excessive punishment (hell) could correspond to his Father’s excessive love. He was caught up in this awesome dilemma; and now the hour has come for him to decide, to choose once and for all. Or rather, as St. Paul says, because he is the Yes to all the Father’s promises, the hour is come for him to ratify his mission (I Cor 1:20).

“My heart is nearly broken with sorrow” (Matt 26:38). He was afraid. Fright and dejection pour into his soul. Feel, ponder, and mull over this “desolation” of the Son of God. Indeed, with the exception of sin itself, he was truly clothed “in the same sinful flesh” as ourselves (Rom 8:3).

And the drama of his choice was that it had repercussions throughout his flesh.

Even to the point that he sweat blood: “And his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). “This supposes”, comments St. Ignatius, “that his garments were saturated with blood.”

During this agony he is tempted: tempted as he was before by Satan in the desert, tempted to give up, to forget it all. Abba [O Father], you have the power to do all things. Take this cup away from me!“ (Mark 14:36). Contemplate to what extent Jesus must be dejected, oppressed, to let such words escape from his filial lips. What disgust, what bitterness! We should observe that he did not revolt against his Father’s will; he simply desired that that will would change.

At this point of his temptation, one word would change everything. He had cried out, “Abba [O Father]!” This is not a cry of revolt or hopeless resignation; it is the cry of a son, a cry of confidence in the Father at the height of his suffering, a cry that is already acceptance. In that word Abba there is already contained all of the non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat, that is, all of the meaning contained in the prayer: “But let it be as you would have it, not as I.”

Three times he came back to see his apostles. They were sleeping. Three times he returned to his place of prayer: “Going back again, he began to pray in the same words” (Mark 14:39); “Father, if it is your will, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

Love came out the victor from this agony of Christ. “Liberty” triumphed. “The Father and I are one” of the priestly prayer is affirmed here in the Person of Christ our Lord. In him our sinful flesh becomes a flesh of obedience and filial fidelity.

This prayer of Jesus at Gethsemane can be considered as the pattern for prayer, the model of all prayer, the prayer that goes beyond all methods.

(1) Indeed, to some extent the drama of the redemption must always be operative at the heart of every prayer: our own personal drama, inseparable from who we are, but which we must live with Jesus Christ.

Let us pay particular attention to what St. Luke says when Jesus leaves the upper room on Holy Thursday night: “He then left to make his way as usual to the Mount of Olives, with his disciples following” (Luke 22:39). His agony this night had been preceded by other “agonies”.

(2) In this drama of prayer we are accompanied by our temptations and contradictions, by our outbursts of generosity and our moments of selfishness, by our acts of submission and our movements of revolt, by our times of peace and our moments of distress. Just like Jesus, who both desired this hour and had a disgust and a horror of it, let us not be surprised by the wavering of our own will. It is part of the work of redemption. A person can be “desolate and tempted to run off” and at the same time love and say Yes to our Father.

(3) This personal drama has to play itself out in our prayer. The circumstances of who we are, what we do, and what is in store for us in the future (our activities, sufferings, joys, failures, etc.)—all of these we have to bear. At the same time, we bear them all in our personal conscience and in our conscience as Christians; that is, we bear all of these as men who participate with Christ in the redemption of the world.

(4) Father—this is the word that saves all—which necessarily is Ita, Pater (Yes, Father). The importance and the beauty in our lives of the prayer the Our Father . . . its place at the heart of our deepest being . . . it is here at Gethsemane that Jesus teaches us to say this prayer.

(5) Let us be humble, as Jesus was humble, in this combat that is our prayer. He, the Son of God, calls for and accepts the comfort of the angel. The angel is the sign of the love of the Father. Let us look for and accept everything that can assist us in our prayer. Such is the prayer of the poor man! Such is the prayer of the publican! Such is the prayer of the Canaanite woman!

(6) If our prayer is a redemptive prayer, we should not be surprised if it wanders here and there and that we are always repeating the same words. At Gethsemane Jesus comes and goes; he looks for support does not find it, but, as St. Mark tells us, “Going back again he began to pray in the same words” (14:39). A love without words . . . a prayer more real than the most beautiful formulas ever composed.

(7) Despite his personal agony, Jesus thinks of others, of his apostles: “Be on guard and pray that you may not undergo the test” (Matt 26:41). “And lead us not into temptation.”

(8) Savor the contrast of the tragic prayer at Gethsemane with the energetic “Get up! Let us be on our way!” that he says as Judas and the cohort come into the Garden (Matt 26:46). Strength: that is what comes from redemptive prayer. The Virgin Mary, the coredemptrix, stood near the Cross of Jesus (John 19:25).

Third Point: The Apostles Run Off

The sequel to all of the events that occurred up to the time of his capture takes place before the Passion, when his body is mutilated. It comes about now in the passion that rips apart his human heart, that is, when his own ran off abandoning him, forsaking him.

“With that, all deserted him and fled”, reports St. Mark (14:50). Think about how sad that word all is.

All, even Peter, the fighter.

All, even John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.

All? No, over there is his Mother. She shows compassion for him. But for him, his Mother’s compassion means an increase of suffering.

All? No, Judas is there, too. He gives him the only sign of friendship this night—a kiss. But this particular kiss is the sign of treason. Jesus does not shirk from Judas’ kiss, but think about how bitter it is for him. Consider the infinite sadness in his complaint: “Friend, do what you are here for!” (Matt 26:50).

I will close my contemplation by conversing about these matters with Christ our Lord, who goes to his Passion for my sins: “He poured out for you every drop of his blood” (Pascal). After watching Peter flee and John run off, dare I pose here the questions I asked myself in the Colloquy of Mercy: “What will I do for Christ? What should I do for Christ?” After seeing the kiss of friendship perverted—“Friend, a kiss . . . ?”—dare I talk with him “as one friend to another”?

In my confusion I will catch up with Peter: Peter “following him from afar” and who will deny him, but who will immediately weep over his treachery. This then is the irony of that grace I have prayed for during the Second Week: “So that I may imitate him better and follow him more closely”. On this Holy Thursday evening in the company of Peter I feel I have the companionship I # Third Week

need. I am . . . far off; but I do follow him, and that in itself is already something!

Then I will meet up with our Lady and ask her for her heart, her tears, to com pati, to “suffer with” Jesus in his distress as he goes to his Passion.

I will conclude with the Our Father.

Place yourself in the presence of God and make the prayer that begins the meditation.
Ask him to inspire you.

I will call to mind the history of the events. Jesus’ hands are bound, and he is dragged from the Garden of Olives to the house of Annas (the father-in-law of the High Priest Caiaphas). But Annas sends him back to Caiaphas (John 18:24). Peter is there and denies his Master three times. Meanwhile, until daybreak, when the Sanhedrin will meet, Jesus is insulted, taunted, and slapped by his guards. Morning arrives, and the elders of the people, the chief priests, and the scribes meet together in the council of the Sanhedrin. They condemn Jesus to death. Judas, in despair, hangs himself. After passing sentence, Caiaphas has him sent to Pilate, the Roman governor, who alone has the power to pronounce the death penalty.

Composition of Place

I will see the house of the High Priest Caiaphas with its courtyard where his retainers are warming their hands and where Peter comes and sits down … with its guardhouse where Jesus is manhandled, brutalized … and with its grand hall where the Sanhedrin meets and where Jesus is condemned for having said he is the “Son of God”.

I will ask for what I want and desire. Here it will be sorrow with Christ in sorrow, anguish with Christ in anguish, interior grief for so much suffering that Christ endures for me.

First Point: Peter’s Triple Denial

(1) I am in the inner court of Caiaphas’ house. In one corner is Jesus. He is all tied up and used by the guards as if he were something to spit at. They also beat him up and taunt him. Then, covering his eyes, they strike him: “Prophesy! Who struck you?” In another corner a fire is burning. Servants and soldiers are sitting around it warming their hands. Peter comes up, and he sits down, too. He is full of remorse for having run off when Jesus was arrested. Follow the events as they are presented by St. Mark (14:54-73).

(2) The atmosphere around the fire lends itself to easy conversation: “You too were with Jesus of Nazareth.” Peter denies it: “I do not even know the man you are talking about!” What irony!

(3) Then Jesus turns and looks at Peter (Luke 22:61). Contemplate that look. Peter gets up and leaves. He cries bitterly. Reflect on Peter’s tears.

Second Point: Jesus before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin

(1) The Sanhedrin looked for testimony to bring against Jesus. But the witnesses succeeded only in contradicting themselves. At last, one of them recalled that Jesus had said, “I shall destroy this temple made by human hands, and in three days I will construct another not made by human hands” (see Mark 14:58).

(2) Finally, the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” And Jesus answered, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

(3) The high priest tore his robes and said, “What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What is your verdict?” And they all condemned him to death (Mark 14:63-64).

Third Point: Judas

(1) Then Judas, seeing that Jesus was condemned, repented. Think about the despair contained in that repentance.

(2) He brought back the thirty pieces of silver, the price of his treasonous act. The chief priests and elders refused to accept it. What a complicated predicament the traitor has created for himself! Does this make him repent? Does he now turn interiorly toward Jesus? Or does he despair?

(3) Judas throws the thirty pieces of silver on the temple floor and then goes out and hangs himself.

Consider and try to appreciate the traitor’s loss of hope; such a heavy weight brooded over his soul. What a difference between his attitude and that of Peter!

I will converse with Christ our Lord, offended and condemned for my sins. I will adore him. I will say to him what the priest prays just before Communion at Mass: “Never let me be parted from you.” I will ask him tha, if ever I should be so evil as to betray him, I may shed the tears of Peter rather than give in to the despair of Judas.

I will end the meditation with the Our Father.

What happens here is beyond all words. Each person will follow where grace bids him to go so as “to enter intimately into the mystery of Christ’s death.

Here are three suggestions. The retreatant may want to select one or another among them as he desires.

(1) Read over slowly, peacefully, lovingly — with the attitude one has when he assists at the Mass or reads the office of Good Friday — the whole Passion from one of the four evangelists.

St. Ignatius would have approved using the lexio divina here. He gives the following advice to the retreatant who “wishes to spend more time on the Passion”: “When he finishes the Passion [that is, taking mystery after mystery for the subject of his contemplation], he may devote one whole day to the consideration of the first half of the Passion and a second day to the other half and a third day to the whole Passion.”

(2) Make a lengthy, deeply contemplative Way of the Cross. It should be very personal. See the events clearly as they are, in their tragic reality.

(3) Listen to, ponder over, reflect upon the Seven Words of Christ on the Cross:

— “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.”

— “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
— “Woman, there is your son. This is your mother.”
— “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
— “I am thirsty.”
— “Now it is finished.”
— “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Whatever choice one would make, he could enhance the reality of the contemplation by choosing one or more of these options:

— Reading St. Paul’s account of the gradual self-abasement of the Word of God (Phil 2:6–11).

— reflecting on the passage from Galatians (2:20) about the “Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.

— Renewing the Colloquy of Mercy (see pp. 74–77).

— Reconsidering the Call of the King and the Two Standards;

— Implementing in my day-to-day attitudes the recommendations St. Ignatius gives to those making the Third Week:

— “To consider what Christ our Lord suffers in his human nature; to do all in my power to suffer and be sad for him”.

— “To consider how the Divinity hides itself; for example, it could annihilate its enemies, yet it does not do so but leaves the most sacred humanity to endure so many cruel sufferings.”

— “To consider how our Lord suffers so much for my sins and what I ought to do and to suffer for him”.

This whole contemplation ought to be a conversation, a friendly colloquy with my Savior, and most especially it should be a “simple looking at”, a “pure consideration”. The Passion makes its appeal to faith and the heart, not to words. It is a mystery of love before which I simply allow myself to be so that, imperceptibly and gradually, I can be drawn more deeply into its depths.

I will again end my prayer with the Our Father—this time at the foot of the Cross where the words take on an extraordinary meaning. I shall also repeat word by word the prayer Soul of Christ (Anima Christi).

As I complete these contemplations on the great mystery of the Passion of Christ our Lord, I shall consider, by way of a repetition, the solitude experienced by our Lady on Good Friday evening and during the course of the following day. Many people have used this “Holy Saturday spirituality” as a way to God. The ancient Fathers recommended our reminding God of Jesus and what he did for each and all of us as an excellent method of prayer.

Place yourself in the presence of God and make the prayer beginning the contemplation.

Ask him to inspire you.

I will call to mind the history of the events. Our Lady was present with Jesus on his way to Calvary. She stood near the Cross. Jesus told his Mother that John was now her son while giving his beloved disciple his Mother. There was the descent from the Cross. Afterward Jesus was placed in the tomb. Then she went home with John. Mary is the most perfect model of the Mecum, that is, the “with me”; she indeed is the one who had “compassion”, “suffered with”, her Son. In the eyes of the crowd who put him to death, she was the mother of “the Imposter”, the mother of the one who was condemned. And in the eyes of God?
Composition of Place

In a little private room in the place where John was housed.
I will ask for what I want and desire. Here it will be a heart to “empathize”, that is, to “feel within” me what Jesus Christ feels.

First Point: The Solitude of Our Lady between the Passion and the Resurrection

(1) The cause for this terrible solitude: “he” is no longer here:

He, her Son! She watched over him as a small baby. Then there was Bethlehem . . . Nazareth . . . his farewell to her before beginning his public life . . . Cana. All of these things she “kept in her heart”, and particularly those events she witnessed during the Passion.

She contemplates “the sufferings, pains, and anguish that Christ our Lord endured from the time of his birth down to Calvary”, just as St. Ignatius asks us to consider them.

The sword of sorrow, predicted by Simeon, pierced her soul. She is the one who knows who Jesus truly is because she is the one who lives out fully the drama of our redemption. And she reconciles this drama perfectly within her own soul. Like Jesus during his agony in the Garden, her response is also, “Yes, Father.”

(2) Even though full of sorrow, hers was a faith-filled, hope-filled solitude:

Stabat Mater. Mary stood beneath the Cross, her faith intact. Her faith never knew the fluctuation and hesitations of the faith of the apostles.

Her Son no longer suffers. The pain-filled phase of the redemption is finished: “For your faithful people life is changed, not ended”, as the Preface of the Mass of the Dead tells us.

She knows the Resurrection is certain and that it is near. She remembers the words of Jesus announcing his Resurrection—and that “that imposter while he was still alive made the claim, ’After three days I will rise” (Matt 27:63). And that he will rebuild the temple (of his body) in three days.

She further recalled, “And I—once I am lifted up from earth—will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). Yes, that day was already dawning. It began at Calvary: there were the good thief, the centurion, and those who “went home beating their breasts” (Luke 23:48). The realization of all of this did not stave off her grief as a mother, yet the joy of charity gave some perspective to her sorrow.

It was because of this certitude that her anguish, even though not diminished, was nevertheless appeased. Spend a long time reflecting on our Lady’s serenity, on this quiet peace.

(3) Her solitude, however, was filled up by the presence of the the Holy Trinity:

Her unity with the Trinity was, of course, never interrupted. But today that unity is more centered, more intense. The “beneficent plan” of the Father is realized. The Annunciation is accomplished: “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say” (Luke 1:38). How far-reaching are certain words in the world’s destiny!

The Son. Think about how he said, “My Mother”! It was with the same resonance, the same tenderness that he said, “My Father”, that is, in the Holy Spirit. Without her the redemption would have been impossible. Because of her Immaculate Conception she benefited in an exceptional way in the Son’s redemption, and therefore he rejoiced in her, the first of his redeemed.

The Holy Spirit, to whom she was always perfectly disposed. He now wants her to assist in his future enterprise, that is, in creating the Church, in being the soul of his soul.

Spend a long time savoring this solitude, this silence, this simplicity of our Lady. How beautiful, how wonderful it is!

Second Point: Our Lady’s Solitude Is Open to the Apostles Who Return

Because they too are “alone”. But their loneliness is of a completely different type from Mary’s solitude. Their solitude is the aloneness of the sinner, of him “who would deserve to be reprimanded and considered fainthearted”, as we considered in the meditation of the call of the King. The solitude of those like the disciples on their way to Emmaus, “who had hoped”, and who were disappointed by the events that had taken place, and who had seen their dreams shattered. The solitude of sterility and desolation. How bitter!

Mary welcomes John. She was living where he was lodged. He had been with her at Calvary: “Woman, there is your son” (John 19:26). By privileged title, from that moment on, he is her son. He mourns the death of a friend, and what a Friend . . . a Brother in Mary!

She welcomes the turncoat Peter. She reminds him: “You are Peter, and on this rock, he will build his Church. . . .” He had predicted that you would deny him three times before the cock crowed, but once converted, you would strengthen your brothers . . . . Be up and about now, Peter. The time has come for you to give them courage.“ She taught him humility, the beautiful, holy by-product of sin. It was from Mary that Peter learned to rely no longer on himself (“Peter, do you love me?”) but on Jesus alone, who knew him and who would give him confidence (“Lord, you know that I love you”).

She welcomes the other apostles. They had believed themselves so strong, and yet they all ran off, all of them. Now, one by one, they return. She would love to welcome even Judas, to pardon him, and to remind him of the many, many times he had seen her Son extend pardon to others. She would tell him, “He loves you, and he gave himself up for you. Dilexit te.” And she would also say, “The one who was pardoned the most is the one who is loved the most.”

Undoubtedly Mary Magdalen also came to see our Lady. And Martha, and Mary of Bethany. And Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead.

With courtesy and affection she communicated to all of these her peace, her faith, and her hope. She initiates the role of “the comforter”, a role that the resurrected Jesus will so magnificently exercise. It is a role that is not by any means mere playacting but one in which the person gives only what he truly “has” and what he really “is”.

Rest awhile in a corner of that room, listening, watching, contemplating, admiring.

Third Point: The Church Is Already Begun in the Very Heart of Christ’s Failure

Yes, that is so, thanks to this woman full of grief but with her faith intact.

It is with faith-filled grief that she gathers together Jesus’ friends, one after the other. On Easter morning the regroupment will be complete. It is a sparse and humble band—like the “remnant of Israel” of old, like so many grains of wheat buried in the ground, where the “power of God” will have them sprout forth a harvest.

This will be the group associated with the Resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost, the very first Christian community. And so the Church is planted in the world, a group of true friends of Jesus who believe in his Resurrection!

And here is an admirable thing to reflect upon: at the same time that she renounces her precious solitude to give birth to the Church, our Lady discovers another solitude, another silence in the Church: “Peter, it is you who will command, govern, and rule. You are Peter.” The Acts of the Apostles will mention her again, but very seldom. Nothing about the risen Jesus’ apparition to his Mother, nothing about her life, nothing about her death. In Christian Tradition there will be two places of the “Dormition of the Virgin”, one at Jerusalem, the other at Ephesus. Silence, solitude, but she is at the very heart of the living Church.

After fulfilling her historic role as Redemptrix, she will begin here her role as Mediatrix, the Mother of every Christian.
I also will converse with our Lady, begging her to pardon me for having betrayed her Son, confiding to her, in spite of my wretchedness, that I still desire to love and to imitate her Son: “Hail, Mother of mercy”; “Pray for us sinners!”

I will end my prayer with the Our Father.