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FOURTH STATION: Jesus Meets His Afflicted Mother

Mater Dolorosa
Titian, c. 1555
Oil on Wood

  

 
As the burden of the Cross becomes heavier, Jesus meets his Mother, the one whom the Church through the centuries has called the Theotokos, or “God-bearer,” because when the angel of God appeared to her to announce that she would give birth to the Incarnate Word, Mary submitted graciously and without hesitation.  After the angel departed from her, Mary sang a song about God’s kingdom, and in it, told us how different a world modeled after God’s will – rather than our own – would look.  In that world, God “has put down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty.”

Though Christians have been singing Mary’s song, the Magnificat, every day at Evening Prayer for centuries, her vision of a world ordered after God’s will remains sorely unrealized in our own midst. One example is the devastating irony that the world’s richest countries tend to be the least generous in the amount they invest in economic development for poor countries each year.  The United States – the world’s most prosperous nation – gives a smaller percentage of its annual budget to development aid than any other industrialized nation.

To become part of the movement to change this, join The One Campaign, of which The Episcopal Church is a member, at http://www.one.org/.


Officiant:              We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
People:                  Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Officiant:              To what can I liken you, to what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What likeness can I use to comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For vast as the sea is your ruin. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

Officiant:              A sword will pierce your own soul also:
People:                  And fill your heart with bitter pain.

Officiant:              Let us pray.

O God, who willed that in the passion of your Son a sword of grief should pierce the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary his mother: Mercifully grant that your Church, having shared with her in his passion, may be made worthy to share in the joys of his resurrection; who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

People:                  Amen.

All:                         Holy God,
Holy and Mighty,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy upon us.

 

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