The Seventh Sorrow: the Burial of Christ
“When they had carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb.” (Acts 13:29)
Meditation: Faith during the darkness
In the Seventh Sorrow, the faithful reflect on the sense of grief and desolation that filled the Virgin’s heart after the body of Jesus was laid in the tomb.
The words of St Luke show that there were several people involved in removing the body of Christ from the cross and burying him in the tomb. St Joseph of Arimathaea and St Nicodemus were among them. In the gospel, we read: “The women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph. They saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.” (Luke 23:55) This group of women, as we learn from St John, were the ones who were present at the cross. This also included the Virgin (John 19:25).
St Mark’s gospel tells us that after the Resurrection, St Mary Magdalene went to those who had followed Christ and found them “mourning and weeping” (Mark 16:10). The disciples were grieving together over the loss of their Lord. Let us pause, then, to imagine them gathered with Our Lady, sharing her bereavement, sitting with her in the silence and mingling their tears with hers.
The mourning of the Virgin after the burial of Christ speaks powerfully to anyone who has lost a loved one. Our Lady knows how it feels to say goodbye to those nearest and dearest, to shed tears as they are buried, and to feel an overwhelming sense of loss.
And yet, it’s important to remember that Mary’s sorrow was not the sorrow of someone who had given up hope. She mourned Jesus with all the anguish of a mother, but she also remained his faithful disciple.
At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel had promised her: “He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33). Even if she could not yet see exactly how this promise would be fulfilled beyond the darkness of the tomb, she knew that death could not have the final word over her Son.
As Pope St John Paul II put it: “On Holy Saturday, the Church once again identifies with Mary: all her faith is gathered in Her, the first believer. Amidst the darkness enveloping creation, she alone keeps the flame of faith alive, preparing to welcome the joyful and surprising proclamation of the Resurrection.”
In this Art-Deco style relief sculpture by Herbert Tyson Smith, we see Christ being buried by the Virgin and two of the other disciples. The relief, which dates to the 1930s, is the Fourteenth Station of the Cross within St Matthew’s, Clubmoor.
Prayer:
O Sorrowful Mother, meditating on the bitter pain you felt in being separated from your beloved Son, Jesus, I ask you to pray that he may keep me in his grace, both in this life and at the hour of my death. Obtain for me a strong faith in the resurrection of the dead and in the life of the world to come. Amen.
Leave a Reply