“[…] ‘Consider,’ says St. Bonaventure, ‘how bitter was Mary in the bitter passion of her son.’ Hence, she might have well said, with Ruth (not Ruth, but ‘the women’ said this. Book of Ruth i. 19, 20): ‘Do not call me Naomi, that is Beautiful; but call me Mara, that is, bitter: because the Lord hath greatly filled me with bitterness.’ She was bitter because her two sons were dead; and Mary, too, was beautiful, by the sanctification of the Holy Ghost; but bitter by the passion of her Son. The two sons of Mary are God, made man, and pure man; for of the one she is corporally, and of the other spiritually, mother. Whence the Blessed Bernard says: ‘You are the mother of a King, the mother of an exile, the mother of a God, the mother of a man. These two sons of Mary were both dead in the passion: the one in body, the other in mind, the one in the bitterness of the cross, the other in the infidelity of the soul. And, therefore, the bowels of Mary were filled with bitterness.’ K. H. Digby, Ages of Faith.”
CALL TO ACTION: Call on the most holy name of Mary when life is bitter, that she may help turn the bitter to sweet!
Source of quotations: "Fountain of Living Water" by Rev. A. A. Lambing LL.D., pages 222; Fr. Pustet & Co. Publishers and Booksellers (copyright 1907); Nihil Obstat: Remigius Lafort, S.T.L., Censor; Imprimatur: John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Photo by: Merve Sehirli Nasir