Twenty-ninth Day
What was particularly sorrowful, in this seventh affliction, was the great sense of desertion that Mary felt, as if left by God; her good and adorable Son gone from her sight and buried. The days of the Passion, the death and the burial, must have so exhausted the life of the good Virgin that now she was near giving up the spirit. Every suffering that she had to endure seemed to culminate in this supreme moment. It is the last sword of Simeon’s prophecy. No one can describe the sufferings of Mary, and no one can describe the sanctity with which she bore up in all these trials. But, O Simeon, thou didst assert that having seen the Lord, thou wert now ready to leave this world. But this last sorrow did not announce the end to Mary; she was to suffer on for years. There seems to be nothing human or frail in Mary’s sufferings. Her character grows upon us, in nobility most exalted, and in patience never wavering. Man shows his feebleness at some time, but Mary seemed to grow stronger, purer, and more beautiful.
Prayer.
O Heart of Mary, I offer, etc., etc.