by Fr. H. O’Laverty
When any good work is started in the Church for the salvation of souls, we will always find that it must be built on the Cross, as the Church itself was built on the humiliations of the first Good Friday. When a saint is raised up by God to do great work for souls, it will always be found that the work is built on the Cross, and very many will give a helping hand so long as matters prosper, but they quickly fall away in the face of obstacles or ridicule. They join the crowd just as the hollow friends of Jesus joined the rabble on the first Good Friday. They are scandalized at the weakness of those who are chosen by God to carry out great works, falsely thinking that souls are saved by worldly wisdom or by worldly power. Mary was practically the only single soul that never lost the least confidence in Jesus nor ever for a moment wavered in her faith. This was a tremendous test of greatness of soul.
Some may think that Jesus foretold to His Mother all the events of His Passion and all the future glory of His Resurrection, but there is really no reason for thinking so, and Mary may never have even known the nature of the sufferings of Jesus before the first Good Friday. She asked for no proof of the divinity of Jesus. Her faith was too deep to need proof. She never lost confidence in Jesus in the midst of all the interior desolation with which she was engulfed. Those who have experienced the anguish of abandonment can realize that no other suffering can equal this abyss of loneliness and desolation Some of the saints have suffered for years this interior trial when God seems to have deserted the soul, and there seems to be nothing left but an abyss of indescribable loneliness and when the soul seems to be utterly deserted by God. The saints persevered in their trust in God in the midst of this interior anguish, and as a reward for their trust Jesus gave them great glory for eternity.
