Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow? The poet puts these words on Mary's lips during the agony of her Son, Jesus.
From the very beginning, Mary, who was the most blessed (the word is sometimes translated happy) of women, endured the suffering of the cross. The hardship of giving birth to the Savior of the World in a stable was probably not part of her true sorrow: the sorrow that gained her the title Our Lady of Sorrows. But shortly after his birth, when as a young mother, filled with holy joy at the presentation of the child to His true Father, the Lord of Heaven, Simeon stopped her. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Simeon took the child in his arms and praised God because he recognized Jesus to be the Christ. At this moment he foretold the suffering of the God-man and turning to Mary, his mother, he said: and your own heart will be pierced by a sword. At this very moment her innocent heart, filled with holy ecstasy at the offering of the Only Begotten One to his Heavenly Father, experienced the initial wound of the sword which was to pierce through her very soul on Calvary.
We are told that Simeon spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit, and truly his prophetic words would resonate in the heart of Mary who conceived her child by the Holy Spirit. There can be no doubt that Simeon's words to her were understood with a power and depth that no one, even after the death and resurrection of Jesus, could comprehend. From a height of unspeakable joy, Mary was startled by the revelation of the sorrow she would later endure. We can believe that even at this moment in Mary's young life, when she heard those terrible words in the Temple, Mary bowed her head and repeated her fiat: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done onto me according to thy word.
Within a year or two, Mary would again experience the sword of sorrow when she learned that Herod was seeking the child to destroy him. The Gospels tell the stroy in brief. They merely say that Joseph awoke in the middle of the night, after an angel had warned him in a dream, and took the child and his mother and fled into Egypt. What was the thought of this young mother, did she suppose that this was the final hour, the time foretold by Simeon? How long was the flight into Egypt? How many days? How many weeks? When Mary looked at her infant during that dreadful journey, what terror filled her heart at the thought of brutal soldiers tearing Jesus from her arms and destroying him as they indeed did with the slaughter of the holy innocents in Bethlehem, at this very time.
A few years later, perhaps not even ten, the young boy, Jesus, was lost to his parents when they went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The memory of the horrible flight into Egypt must have been still fresh in her mind, as perhaps were the ghastly stories of the slaughter of the infants in the City of David. What anguish Mary must have felt when, for three days, she and Joseph searched for Jesus without finding him. How desolate and abandoned she must have felt. The Gospels record her words to Jesus when he was at last found in the Temple: Son, why have you done this to us? You see that your father and I have been searching for you in sorrow. Luke 2:48. Simple words, gentle and humble, but revealing three long days of suffering for both mother and foster-father.
Were there other sorrows? Undoubtedly, but we are not told of them until the great sorrow which Mary endured at the Passion of Christ, and her three hour vigil at the foot of the Cross. That was the fulfillment of Simeon's prophecy: that was Mary's ultimate martyrdom that earned for her the everlasting title, Our Lady of Sorrows.
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