Extract from the homily given at the Apostleship of the Sea Stella Maris Mass at Westmisnter Cathedral on 22 September 2016.
Hail, Queen of Heaven has to be one of my favourite hymns. I think it’s due partly to the fact that I find the stars such a source of awe and wonder. To think that the God who made the stars entered the mud of our humanity! Or, as another very popular hymn puts it, ‘the hands which flung stars into space allowed themselves to be cruelly surrendered to nails’.
‘The hands which flung stars into space allowed themselves to be cruelly surrendered to nails.’
All of this must have been in the heart of Mary as she pondered on the life of her Son at the foot of Calvary. I use the word pondered advisedly because we find that very word in the Gospels: we read that she pondered in her heart all that happened to him. She can’t have known that she and Jesus would suffer all of this when she said that huge ‘yes’ to Gabriel. But she was given an inkling when she presented her new-born Son in the Temple and was told by the prophet Simeon that a sword would pierce her heart.
One of the most powerful depictions of Mary’s suffering I find in Michelangelo’s Pietà. There she knows the fullness of his suffering, and her own, as she holds in her arms the body of her dead Son taken down from the cross. And yet, whenever I look at it, I find it difficult to be sad because she is still strong. Crushed? Yes. But defeated? No. What you see in her face is hope.
Mustn’t it have been such a consolation to the Apostles to have Mary among them in their moment of need?! With her faith, she must have been such a light in their darkness. As they listened to her explaining to them those parts of the Scriptures which were about him, hope must have risen like the Ocean Star in their hearts! As she gave them strength in their distress, she waits to give us strength too.
A friend said to me recently, ‘Don’t you think the Memorare is the most beautiful prayer?’ I told him I do, especially the promise, ‘that never was it known that anyone who fled to Mary’s protection was left unaided’. He said that was what went deepest into him too, ‘that never was it known that anyone who fled to Mary’s protection was left unaided’.
‘Remember this,’ says the prayer. And remember it we must; remember we must to trust; remember we must to make every word of this prayer our own and to pray it regularly. If we do, we shall surely feel the light of the Ocean Star beginning to rise in our hearts, just as surely as the Apostles were warmed by Mary’s love and wisdom as she gently prepared them to greet her Risen Son.