Reflection on Luke 2:35

“And a sword will pierce through your own soul also,

so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Who spoke these words? It was the aged prophet Simeon, who said them at the moment when the Holy Mother of God with the protector of the Holy Family, Saint Joseph, brought the child Jesus into the temple on the 40th day after Jesus’ birth. Before speaking these words, Simeon took the little Jesus in his arms and praised God in this way: “Now You release Your servant in peace, Lord, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before all nations – a light that will be a revelation to the Gentiles, a glory for Your people Israel.” (v. 29-32) And Simeon blessed them and said to His mother Mary: “Behold, He is given for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, and as a sign that they shall resist – even your own soul shall be pierced by the sword – that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (v. 34-35)

Mary also experienced many inner sufferings in her life. Already when she learned that Herod was trying to kill the baby Jesus, then when she escaped to Egypt, then when the little Jesus was still in the temple, lost and they went back looking for Him. Later, when the Lord Jesus had frequent encounters with the Pharisees and they sought to kill Him. Certainly every hatred against Him and the efforts to kill Him were experienced by her very painfully. Also, when Judas betrayed, then when she learned that Jesus had been taken captive, that He had been condemned to death, and when she heard the cry, “Crucify, crucify!”, her heart was gripped with pain. She saw Him scourged, with a crown of thorns, and then accompanied Him on the way of the cross to His death. As they drove the nails into His hands and feet during the crucifixion, and then for three hours by the cross, she experienced literally every moment of His painful dying with Him. When they took Jesus down from the cross and laid Him on her lap, she embraced His holy body covered with deep wounds with motherly love. Then she and His most faithful followers laid Him in the grave. On the night of Good Friday, she was again reminded of the hammering, the roaring, and the mocking by the cross. His mother experienced with Him very sensitively all the suffering that Jesus endured for our sins. We venerate the seven sorrows of Mary, but these sorrows were not just seven, there were many more of them. And when did the sword of pain pierce her soul? It was at the moment when Jesus’ suffering on the cross reached a painful climax in the loud cry, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.” And when the soldier stabbed Jesus’ heart with a spear, it was as if he had stabbed a sword of pain into her heart.

How many people experience the mental pains of the loss of loved ones, of abandonment, of ingratitude, of betrayal… Jesus’ mother experienced all of this to the extreme and therefore she is sympathetic to everyone who suffers. She also wants to give you the comfort of turning to her with confidence in your most difficult mental suffering. Remember that the Mother of Jesus also suffered for you, for your sins, together with her Son. As His suffering culminated on the cross, Jesus spoke to the disciple, and by extension to all His disciples, saying: “Behold your mother.” Jesus also gives His mother to you to accompany you on your life’s journey. When evil and the devil try to get you into their traps and onto the slippery path to destruction, that is when you should turn to Jesus’ mother. Jesus gave her to us as the one who crushes the head of the devil, the hellish serpent. There is a great mystery connected with her that is part of the Gospel. Jesus promises us that whatever we ask for, and if we do not doubt in our hearts, it will be done for us. And it is above all that we are to ask for the salvation of immortal souls, our own and those of our loved ones. But salvation involves a spiritual battle with the forces of darkness that work on our minds, on our wills, and on our unpurified hearts. We need God’s grace, God’s help, and she is full of grace, kecharitomene! God gives her to us as a mother.

In this battle for souls, we are to lift the spiritual mountains of demonic forces that nowadays occupy individual nations, entire cities, villages, and even individuals. Jesus gave us the commission and the promise to cast out demons, heal the sick and raise the dead in His name. Sadly, the promise is usually ineffective because we doubt in our hearts, our faith is weak, as if the word is without spirit, without power. But if we endeavour, as St Louis Maria Grignion says, to do everything with Mary and in Mary, and we give her full reign in us in that moment and let her work through us, her faith is without doubt. She is blessed because she believed what she was told by the Lord. As for the conflict with demons, she is full of grace, full of the Holy Spirit, and the power of the Most High – or the Holy Spirit – works through her. In other words, Mary in us commands the demons, “Come out!” and the power of God – the Holy Spirit – makes it happen. It is therefore necessary for us to enter deeply into this mystery. She is the new Eve, she is Immaculate.

We are to receive her within, as John did at the cross, so that she may be a living tabernacle in us, and Jesus may work in us through the Holy Spirit. In other words, that Jesus may be conceived in us through her faith and purity and grow within us in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then we will be able to say with the Apostle: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. This new birth relates to interior prayer and the willingness to die to one’s own will. This is carrying the cross. So, in the crossing of our will by the will of God, we are to die with Christ to our will, which hurts our ego, but Christ grows and becomes stronger in us. He must live in us through Mary and through the Spirit of God. This is the great mystery, and it is also connected with the words: The sword of pain will pierce your soul, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. This spiritual transformation is linked to the sword of pain which the mother of Jesus endured, as the Apostle expresses it also in the words: “My dear children, I am in the pains of childbirth for you until Christ is formed in you.” Further, the Apostle shows that she is the New Jerusalem, which, as he says, “is the mother of us all.” (cf. Gal 3-4)

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