Most Catholic churches will somewhere have a series of images/icons on a wall depicting the sufferings Jesus did for us. Called The Stations of the Cross, people often stop before them to pray and reflect on the Passion of Christ depicted there. In my church, a small group of people pray before each station before mass every Friday morning. I joined them today, but while the people prayed at the rear of the church where the stations are depicted on the wall, I stood near the front, to keep virus-protection separation from the other people.
As the people moved across the wall from image to image, at one point my eye caught sight of the small grotto to my left. Dedicated to Mary, the images within it included a life-sized image of the Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was VERY surprised to see that in this particular image, Mary was wearing a blue face mask --- just like the one I was wearing to protect from the virus. I don’t mean that someone placed a mask over the image, I mean that it WAS the image! How could that be? As I continued to pray the Stations of the Cross with the others, I found myself starting to stare at the picture of Mary. The mask looked like the one I was wearing, and in the picture I could see the elastic bands on each side. How could that be? And while I was staring, I’m sure that in the back of my mind was the thought that this was not a good joke to be playing in the church. This had to be a joke, right?
When we finally concluded our Stations of the Cross prayers, I walked to the back of the church where I would sit during mass --- to keep my distance from others. As I walked past that image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I saw that the image was part of a wall hanging which had see-through plastic over the front. Suddenly as I neared it, the face mask I saw disappeared, and I realized it had been a reflection on the plastic, which just happened to be over Mary’s face, but it disappeared when the image was looked at from another angle, and I dismissed further thoughts of it.
I sat down and began reading my morning prayers, which spoke of Mary’s sufferings as she followed her Son’s suffering and death, like the Stations of the Cross we had just prayed. And I recalled how I sometimes pray a rosary called the Seven Sorrowful Mysteries of Mary, as she follows the life of her Son. It is a very interesting rosary to meditate upon, as you recall all she suffered, as a mother chosen by God.
Suddenly, my mind jumped back to that image of Our Lady of Guadalupe wearing a mask. The seven Sorrowful Mysteries of Mary was a reminder of how Mary participated in Jesus’ sufferings, and I suddenly realized the image I had seen of Mary wearing a mask was a reminder to me that she also participates in our sufferings. Not only that, but Mary knew that Jesus’ sufferings were necessary, and I felt she knows that ours are also.
From the cross, Jesus said to his disciple John: Behold your mother. Catholics believe that those words were meant to apply to all of us; she’s our mother also. And so, it makes perfect sense that if she suffered with Jesus, she also suffers with us. The Stations of the Cross, the masked Guadalupe image, Mary’s sorrowful mysteries of the rosary: we don’t carry sufferings alone, whether carrying a cross or wearing a mask. She is our mother, who suffers with us, and prays for us.
It doesn’t make our burden get any lighter, but it does give solace to know that Mary, the Mother of God and our mother is with us, and is praying for us.
