The last trip through the sorrows! Time for them to take a trip through us!
1) The Prophecy of Simeon
In my KJV, the prophecy that a sword will pierce Mary's “soul” is put in parentheses. I think the translators wanted to convey that it was the the sign that would be spoken against that would reveal the thoughts of many, not Mary's pierced heart.
So, let's grant them their parentheses. Then our Lady's sorrow is parenthetical. And our sorrows? Do they get at least a mention? What about ME?
Sed Contra, such glory as I may be destined for will shine its best in parentheses. I am, you are, rightly said to be at the center of the heart of IHS. But that only matters because HE is the center, not you.
Where I live there is a last range of hills to the east before we come to the coastal plain, broken by the “fall line”. Some mornings the mist on the mountains rolls down their west side. By a wonder of optics, they seem to carry the light with them, and a golden river slowly sinks into the hollows.
But let's remember. The mist is just droplets of water. It is beautiful, but at its most beautiful it reflects. Each droplet shares the light with every other droplet, and receives light from every other.
But the poignancy of the beauty is precisely that the droplets promise and prove something beyond themselves, and that promise fills them with the light which enraptures us. By themselves, they would only obscure vision. Lit by the sun, even they, insignificant creatures, urge us to look beyond even the sun to the Son who gives light to all.
There is ample glory, more than enough glory, in our parentheses. Everything that Mary is and does reflects the Glory of the Son. We too are called to shine in his light.
O ROOT OF JESSE