The School of Love, March 25

TROUBLE

[continued from yesterday]

Now let us put alongside of these the two expressed troubles of Our Lady.

First is that which she felt at the Annunciation. When the angel had come in, and had saluted her with his greeting: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women;" the Evangelist adds that Mary "having heard was troubled at his saying, and thought within herself what manner of salutation this should be."

She was troubled, but not in doubt, as was Zachary on a like occasion. She was troubled because, as is said of her several times afterwards, "she did not understand."

There was something new, something of a revolution in all this; she did not know to what it pointed; the will of God for her had become confused. So have the greatest saints been troubled at moments of crisis in their lives.

So for example was St. Teresa often troubled. So is many a soul troubled that seeks earnestly to find that will, and is suffered to remain in the dark.

The next occasion is far more easily under­stood. She had lost her Son; she had looked for Him three long days; when she found Him the trouble of her heart would not contain itself.

"Son, why hast thou done so to us?" she said. "Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." This is a trouble that needs no explanation, and needs no parallel.

Whatever commentators may say as to the possible self-accusation in Our Lady's heart, the simple fact is quite enough; she had lost Him - she, Him - and he is a strange nature who does not understand the rest.

But perhaps there are some who understand it more than others; not merely good mothers who have been forced to part with a child they have loved, but those who at some time in their lives have been permitted to draw very near to their Lord, and then afterwards have seemed to lose Him.

How many of this kind have cried: "Why hast thou done so to us?" and have been told that it was because of "His Father's business"! Let such remember the troubled heart of Our Lady....

[continued tomorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918