The Palm Sunday readings for the Roman Catholic Church draw us into the suffering of Christ. The Old Testament reading is taken from the songs of the suffering servant in Isaiah 50:4-7 and placed on the lips of Jesus, the suffering servant of his people:

Perhaps we need to remember that real people suffered these events, not as actors on a stage, but as sons and mothers and relatives and friends. Jesus Christ alone suffered, died and redeemed us. He alone! He was truly alone yet not alone. Each person is ultimately alone in death. The words of Psalm 22, an ancient hymn of the sufferings and hope of the virtuous person, expresses the loneliness of the dying Christ:

My God, my God, why have you deserted me?
How far from saving me, the words I groan!
I call all day, my God, but you never answer,
all night long I call and cannot rest.
Yet, Holy One, you
who make your home in the praises of Israel,
in you our fathers put their trust,
they trusted and you rescued them ....

Follow Christ with Mary to Conversion and Reconciliation
Liturgical Readings of the Season from the Votive Mass of the Lenten Season:
The Blessed Virgin Mary: Mother of Reconciliation

Jesus was infinitely alone yet not alone. Mary, his mother was there and the small community of the beloved disciple and some women. (cf. John 19:25-27) This was the moment when Tradition holds it that the Church was born of the open wound of Christ on the cross.

But why all this? Clearly, to be reconciled with God! (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:20) In contemplating the utter misery of the God-man's suffering, we are invited to remember that we are to be washed clean and to share in the suffering. No one is spared the decision-making and the journey. No one is exempt from sin, sorrow, and misery, from the things that isolate and divide.

In Christ, the old things are to pass away, these things of sin. Saint Paul tell the Corinthians:

The Church has with ever greater clarity acknowledged the role of our Lady in reconciling sinners with God. The Fathers of the Church in the early centuries, in discussing the mystery of the incarnation of the Word, speak frequently of the virginal womb of the mother of the Lord as the place where 'peace' between God and the human race came to be.

Popular devotion has long remembered this 'peace' of Mary, the woman who gave birth to the Redeemer. She held him in her arms at his birth; tradition has it that he was placed in her arms at his death. She is reconciled to the Father's will. As time went on, Mary was called a refuge where the miserable could find consolation. Not only is she called Mother of Reconciliation. She is also called Refuge of Sinners. The sinner and the miserable find refuge in her peace.

Devotions Draw Us into Participation in Christ's Suffering

As early as the eleventh and twelfth century, we reference to Mary compassion toward the sinner. Saint Anselm of Canterbury (+1109) composed prayers and meditations which include the consideration of Mary's compassion. Legends abound which show Mary's love for those in trouble, especially for sinners in trouble. As shown in the images on this webpage, the earliest painting to express Mary's compassion were those where Jesus is taken from the cross and placed in the tomb. The placing in the tomb became the most important image. A later development of this theme is known to us as the Pietà.

In the fourteenth century an illuminated manuscript about the fall and redemption was written in Latin prosaic rhyme. It consists of one hundred lines and four miniature paintings. The manuscript bears the title, Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Mirror of Humanity's Salvation). Over time, the Speculum was extended to forty-five chapters, 4924 lines, and 192 miniatures. It contained three hundred quotes from Scripture and ancient writings. The last part dealt with the seven sufferings of Christ and the seven joys and seven sorrows of Mary. Mary is portrayed as a helper in the work of redemption. It is Jesus, however, who is central. This work received a great reception in writing, architecture and art between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is also in some of these manuscripts that the Pietà became a favored devotional image.

Plaint of the Madonna Jacopone da Todi (+1306) O Son, your soul has left you, O Son of discouragement, O Son of disappearance, O Son who was poisoned! O Son bathed in red and white, O Son without compare, O Son, to whom shall I turn? O Son, you have left me!

The Pietà of South Africa Malaika Favorite Oil on canvas, 1991

Michael Ciry Etching, 1950 Cincinnati Art Museum Sloniker Collection

Lord our God, through the precious blood of Your Son You reconciled the world to Yourself and at the foot of his cross you chose the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the mother of reconciliation for sinners; grant through her intercession that we may obtain pardon for our sins. We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ...

Roman Turovsky USA, 1990

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Written by Sister M. Jean Frisk, The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute

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