Newsletter #109 – Our Lady of Mount Carmel USA

Dear Friends and Benefactors,
“A BUNDLE OF MYRRH IS MY BELOVED TO ME”

“A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall abide between my breasts.” (Cant. 1, 12) These words are taken from the first chapter of the Canticle of Canticles, which is referred entirely to the Blessed Virgin Mary by many serious and learned authors. We can therefore say that it is the book of the Virginal Heart of Mary and of her ardent love. It is a book filled with inspired words, revealing that her incomparable Heart is ablaze with love of God and filled with charity for men.

“My beloved is like a bundle of myrrh to me: he shall abide between my breasts,” and in my Heart. Who utters these words? The Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Who is the Beloved of whom she speaks? It is her only Son, her well-beloved. Why does she call Him a bundle of myrrh? Because she beholds Him crucified and plunged in an ocean of contempt, insults, ignominies, anguish, bitterness and most atrocious torments. This fills her maternal Heart with so much bitterness, pain and suffering that she can truly call her desolate Heart a sea of anguish and tribulation, according to the words which can be applied to both Jesus and Mary: “Great as the sea is thy desolation.” (Lam. 2,13) Thy sufferings, O Jesus, are immense, boundless and bottomless like the sea. And thy dolours, O Mother of Christ, are so exceeding great that all the afflictions and desolations of the world are as nothing compared to thine, as the waters of all fountains and rivers seem but a drop beside the boundless ocean.

To understand this truth perfectly, one would have, to comprehend the immense and ardent love of her Son that constantly inflamed the ineffable Heart of our Saviour’s Mother. For a mother’s sorrow over the sufferings of her son exists in proportion to her love for Him, and the love of our Redeemer’s Mother was, in a sense, measureless. The Eternal Father had made her share in His divine Paternity and chosen her to be the Mother of His own Son; He therefore communicated to her Something of His own inconceivable love, a love befitting the sublime dignity of her divine maternity.

How great is the love of the incomparable Mother for the most perfect of Sons. This Mother holds the place of father as well as mother towards her Son, and her Heart is miraculously filled with paternal as well as with maternal love towards Him. His love is so great, that if the love of all the human fathers and mothers that ever have been or shall be concentrated in a single heart, it would be but a small spark compared to the furnace of Mary’s love for her beloved Son. He is an only Son, the sole object of His Mother’s affection. He is an infinitely lovable and loving Son, and she loves Him without measure. He possesses all that is beautiful, rich, desirable, admirable and lovable in time and eternity. This Son is everything to His mother; He is her Son, her brother, her father, her spouse, her treasure, her glory, her love, her delight, her joy, her heart, her life, her God, her Creator, her Redeemer and her all.

From this we may fathom the love of such a mother for such a Son, and consequently the most torturing and painful martyrdom of her maternal Heart when she sees Him bathed in blood, covered with wounds from head to foot, and so filled with pain in body and Soul, that the Holy Ghost, speaking through Isaias, calls Him the “Man of Sorrows,” (Isa. 53, 3) the man entirely transformed into sorrow.

We shall therefore not be surprised to hear St. Anselm thus addressing the Mother of Sorrows: “All the torments which the martyrs underwent are as nothing, O Virgin, when compared to the immensity of the dolours, which transpierced thy soul and thy most loving heart.” (De excell. Virg. cap. 5) O sweetest Heart of Mary,” exclaims St. Bonaventure, “Heart transformed by love, how art thou now changed into a Heart of sorrow, satiated with gall, myrrh, and absinth?” (Stimul. Amor. cap. 3) “O admirable prodigy,” he adds, “thy heart and mind are plunged in thy Son’s gaping wounds, while thy crucified Jesus dwells and lives in thy inmost Heart.” (Ibid)

We should not be surprised, therefore, at the revelation to St. Brigid, that the Blessed Virgin would have died of sorrow during the Passion of her Son if He had not miraculously preserved her. And Mary herself, speaking to the Same St. Brigid, says: “I can presume to say that my Son’s sorrow was my sorrow, because His Heart was my Heart.” (Revel, lib. I, cap. 35) O my Queen,” says St. Bonaventure, “thou act not only standing by the cross of thy Son, juxta crucem, but thou art on the cross suffering with Him: In cruce cum Filio cruciaris. He suffered in His body, and thou didst suffer in thy Heart, and the wounds scattered over His body were gathered together in thy Heart.” (Stimul. Amor. cap. 3)

Finally, just as the love of Mary’s maternal Heart for her Son Jesus Christ is past all that can be imagined, so the most painful martyrdom of her Immaculate Heart is beyond what thought can conceive or words express. “No sorrow is more cruel than hers, for no Son could be more dare than hers. If her love is most
sweet, so is her pain the bitterest of all.”

Fr. Pancras Raja
Spiritual Director
September 13, 2023

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Consecration of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to Immaculate Heart of Mary
http://ourladyofmountcarmelusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Consecration-to-Immaculate-Heart-by-Our-Lady-of-Mt.-Carmel-SSPX-Marian-Corps.pdf

Featured Sermon
Given By His Excellency Bishop Pfeiffer

Posted in Newsletters and tagged 2023, Father Pancras Raja, Newsletter, September