Offer and suffer with Mary

In obedience to His will, she made a free offering that led Him to give Himself voluntarily on the cross for the life of all, and from this voluntary offering of herself to the Father, the Eucharist is the perpetual memorial.

Mary and the Offering to God

Offering presupposes that someone has something of their own to offer, not offering things that are not theirs. We offer what we receive from God as if it were our own. The fundamental first gift He gave us is life. Life is ours to the extent that He gave it to be ours, while reserving to Himself the divine right of ownership.

Therefore, we all must give account to Him of how we live it or live it. Mary, all beautiful and pure, without any stain of sin, and filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit from the first instant of her conception, worthy therefore to offer herself to God as a pleasing oblation to Him, offered herself virgin to God from the first beats of her existence, to be entirely and only His, in accordance with His divine designs.

Life, prayer, flames of love, even in the simplicity of her daily life, rose to God’s throne and attracted the Redeemer’s Son to the earth. But when He clothed His immaculate flesh and His most pure blood in the Word who descended to her and became flesh of her by the action of the Holy Spirit, Mary became the first and incomparable offerer, to the Father, of the incarnate Son, the eternal Son of the Father, born temporally of her by the action of the Holy Spirit. But with what virginal trembling love, with what profound and unique adoration, with what audacity of filial boldness to obtain over the whole world the gift of light and life in Christ, did she become a living offering of the Savior to the world to be saved?

A virgin offering not only at the moment of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, but at every moment of the long years spent with Him, in the rhythm of her virgin heart, she offered Him. With Him, humbly, she also offered herself to the Father, until the great offering on the Cross, where, to fulfill the divine will, she united her whole being to the bloody offering of the Redeemer’s Son. And she continues to offer Him, for all, hidden and present on every altar on earth.

We as Mary and with Mary

Offering ourselves first, “as” Mary and “with” Mary, imploring first to be purified from the many stains that defile us, so that we may become a pure offering, pleasing to God, in the Holy Spirit, as we invoke in the Third Eucharistic Prayer: «May the Holy Spirit make of us a perpetual sacrifice acceptable to You».

Especially during the celebration of the Eucharist, all, ministers and faithful, are called to give thanks to God and offer not only the immaculate host, but also themselves to God (Sacrosanctum Concilium).48). In fact, according to the diversity of the gift, all are consecrated by the Spirit as priests of the Most High God for the salvation of the world.After the sleep of the night, when the eyes open to the new day, we should imitate the birds that sing full-throatedly the praises of their Creator, and bless Him with their flights and harmonious songs. A gratitude that immediately turns into an offering, the offering of the new day to Him who gives it to us.For each day of life is a gift, and each new day is a new gift added to an uninterrupted chain of gifts that the Lord gives us. Every mother teaches her child to *thank* him who offers a gift. Thus, Mary teaches us to begin our day by turning our grateful minds to the Giver of every gift, and to offer Him in Her maternal hands all the actions that will make up the fabric of the day that opens.The Church also teaches us to validate our gratitude with an act of faith, hope, and charity. But to better thank the Lord and offer Him less indignously our day and that of all men on earth whom He loves, it is so beautiful and pleasing to God that we place everything and everyone in the heart of the blessed Mother, and with Her filial and maternal feelings, we offer to the Giver the gift He makes to us.We can thus begin the day with this act of offering:> *“Father who art in heaven, through Jesus Christ thy Son in the Holy Spirit, I adore, I love, and I thank thee for the gift of this new day. In the immaculate hands of Our Mother, I offer thee my intentions, my actions, my sufferings, mine and all thy children on earth. Make them according to thy will, for the glory of thy name, for the salvation of the world. Amen.”*During the dayDuring the day, there will be no lack of ways to offer: the actions we perform in accordance with God’s will and each one according to his condition and situation that he is called to live daily, at home, on a journey, at work, wherever divine providence asks us to be. And to offer in a special way the things that disturb us, be it in our body, be it in our heart, or in human coexistence. And to offer them not only for ourselves, but for all, starting with the dearest and closest to us, to broaden the horizon to many other brothers and sisters in the world who form with us the human family. Also for those who have already left this earth for eternity, and perhaps just expect from us, in the hands of Mary who is also their Mother, a thought, a prayer, the offering of a small, but very valid sacrifice.Thus, Pope Benedict XVI exhorts us in his encyclical on Christian hope.In *Spe salvi* (n. 40), Pope Benedict XVI writes:«I would like to add a brief, yet not entirely irrelevant, thought regarding daily events. Part of a form of devotion, perhaps less practiced today but still widespread not too long ago, was the practice of ‘offering’ one’s daily efforts, which always affect us anew as more or less bothersome stings, thus giving them some meaning… These people were convinced that they could insert their small efforts into the great suffering of Christ, and in this way, they believed, they would enter into the treasury of compassion that humanity needs. Thus, even the smallest irritations of daily life could acquire a meaning and contribute to the economy of good and love among men. Perhaps we should indeed ask ourselves if such a perspective could once again become a sensible one for us.»Furthermore, the Council teaches:«The laity, dedicated to Christ and consecrated by the Holy Spirit, are in a wonderful way called and prepared to produce an ever-abounding fruit of the Spirit. Indeed, all their activities, prayers, and apostolic initiatives, married and family life, daily work, spiritual and bodily relief, if carried out in the Spirit, and even sufferings endured with patience, become spiritual offerings acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Pt 2:5).»*Lumen Gentium* 34.Offering the sufferings and goodsIn this context of offering, we can also include the sufferings and labors of many other brothers and sisters, I think with admiration of a doctor who, by the bedside of his patients, acts also as a priest, in addition to a doctor, and thus becomes, with Mary in the Church, offerers of Christ, who still suffers in His members.Gathering all the goods that men express every day, knowing that the paschal mystery of Christ reaches every man, and that no good is born solely from man, if it is not first inspired by God. There is no man in the world so evil, so immersed in the darkness of evil, that at least some reflection of divine light does not remain in him, who created us in His image. Gather everything, as Jesus told the apostles after the prodigious multiplication of the loaves: “Gather the fragments that are left, so that nothing be lost” (John 6:12), and make of it baskets to present to the Lord, in the hands of the Mother of all men.Offering Jesus to the Father with MaryIf before God, who loves us as a Father of immense mercy, even the smallest and almost insignificant gift of each action of His children has so much value, what value will not He give to the offering that His Son made throughout His existence on earth up to the supreme sacrifice of the Cross, and which He left as a memorial and gift to His Church?Offering Jesus in the Eucharistic sacrifice, offering Jesus present as a victim on every altar and in every tabernacle on earth! It is precisely “with” Mary that we must make the offering of the Son of God to the Father. In fact, that Son is hers. She can and must continually offer Him, as a Mother, to the Father for all, since she welcomed Him when He descended from heaven and offered Him from the first instant of His conception until He died, embracing Him in her arms to give the world, in the blood shed and in her Mother’s tears, the price of reconciliation and forgiveness.Thus, as we pass by a church or a holy place where He is really present in the tabernacle, each one should get used to adoring His hidden presence, and, almost prolonging the Eucharistic celebration, offer Him with Mary to the Father for the salvation of all.Suffering with MaryThe value of each sufferingIf each one of our actions, inspired by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us from the moment of our baptism, has a value to offer, in Christ, to the Father for all, suffering has a singularity of its own.In fact, it was with His passion and death that Jesus redeemed the world, and with His compassion and pain, the Virgin became His generous partner in the work of salvation. Every suffering, physical, moral, spiritual, entered the world because of sin.Therefore, the Son of God, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, became the Man of Sorrows, described by Isaiah (Is 52-53), upon whom God laid the sin and sorrows of humanity.Thus, in him and in his voluntary passion and death, every pain was redeemed and became participation in his redeeming passion. Thus, the “gospel of suffering,” which encompasses the earth, creates mysterious bonds with Him whom God made “sin” for all, to give mercy to all. “It was fitting that God, through whom and for whom all things exist, who brings many sons to glory, should make perfect through suffering the one who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 2:10).Woman of SorrowsMary is the “Woman of Sorrows”: a silent, deep, sometimes tearing pain, as in the disappearance of Jesus in the Temple and on Holy Saturday, consummated in obedience to the will of the Father with Christ, united to his human and divine suffering, a reflection of his ineffable afflictions, “compassion” with his passion: always accepted out of love for us.By the side of the crucified Son, “she stood, co-suffered bitterly with him” (Lumen Gentium 58). Her life on earth, at least from the day of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was a continuous martyrdom, not of the body, but of the heart and spirit: “and a sword shall pierce through your own soul” (Lk 2:35).As taught by Saint John Paul II:“No one has experienced, as the Mother of the Crucified, the mystery of the cross, the shocking encounter of the transcendent justice of God with love… No one as she, Mary, has embraced in her heart that mystery: this truly divine dimension of redemption that took place on Calvary through the death of the Son, together with the sacrifice of her heart as a mother, together with her definitive ‘fiat’.”Dives in misericordia, n. 9We are with Mary and as Mary.“For me, I do not boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” said Saint Paul, adding: “Now I find joy in my sufferings for you, completing what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ on my body, for his body, which is the Church” (Colossians 1:24). It is not easy to accept suffering, whether physical or emotional: “It is one thing to speak, another to suffer.”But it is precisely the Lord and his sorrowful Mother who give meaning to suffering, which remains a mystery in any case and reveals itself to each person in a unique way at times. We must firmly hold in our minds that nothing happens without a design of God, and that every suffering, by mystically uniting us to Christ the Sufferer, has a profound meaning and makes us participants in his redemption of humanity.Like Mary, many saints embraced even the most atrocious sufferings to cooperate with the design of the Father, who wishes all to be saved in the blood of the Son, and to imitate his passion: “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you may follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). To suffer for others, imitating Jesus and the Virgin, is a sign of hope and an encouragement to face, obedient and silent like Mary, the pains that God’s will prepares for us, up to the supreme pain of death. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).It is a consolation for the faithful to know that nothing is lost, that suffering is not in vain, but that with it we can perform the most valid act of offering for so many known or unknown people, and collaborate “with Mary” in the salvation of the world.The words of Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Spe salvi

“To suffer with the other, for the other… Man has such value for God that He Himself became man to be able to suffer with man in a truly real way, in flesh and blood, as demonstrated in the narrative of Jesus’ Passion. From then on, in every human suffering, Someone entered who shared in the suffering and bearing. From then on, consolation spreads to every human suffering, the consolation of God’s participatory love, and thus the star of hope is born”.

And Jesus Himself, confirming the disciples of Emmaus after His resurrection in their faith, declared about Himself: “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures about Him” (Lk 24:26-27).

The dimension of offering and suffering with Mary finds deep resonance in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which presents Mary as a companion on the path to the cross.

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