Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?

[Josephina]

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
You gave Him to me and asked me to be His friend.
Never to leave Him.
I promised I would be faithful to Him until death.
Yet there I was - sleeping when He asked me to stay awake and pray.
Sleeping, lukewarm, one who often turned away “dirtying my garments”, more interested in me than Him.
I did not see the tears, the drops of blood He sweated because of my indifference, my sin.
But Your heart did.
He sorrowed, He called. I did not answer.
And Your heart sorrowed with Him.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
A kiss. A betrayal.
I said I loved Him, but money, recognition, the security of the world, my
“kingdom” were more important.
I have been Judas.
I have betrayed Him.
I have been Peter.
I have denied Him.
I have been James.
I have walked away in tough times.
Fear has controlled me.
I let it.
For if I had trusted Him, nothing could have moved me from His side.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
There He is. Standing accused.
Where are those He healed, those He touched and made whole?
You search the crowd.
Where are those who knew Him, those You trusted as His friends?
They take Him away. The crowd follows.
Fastened to a column, He is scourged.
Who delivers the blows?
It is not only “them”. It is me as well.
My hands are stained with His blood.
My sins have been the whip.
My hands, My heart have delivered the blows.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
My thoughts, my choices, my judgements, my unforgiveness
have crowned Him with thorns pressing deeply into His brow.
Blood runs down His face.
I was there.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
The cross is heavy upon His back.
I hide. Shame is overtaking my heart of stone.
He falls. I do not move to help Him.
I do not extend my hands.
There is one who will. Where is he?
Where are those who said they loved Him?
I see You. I see Him.
Your eyes meet.
Are You pleading for me, for us?
Does He tell You to love those who persecute Him?
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
He falls again.
Was that a soilder kicking Him, or was it me?
Have I stretched my hand to lift up the down-trodden,
or have I turned my back?
The soilders force someone to help Him carry the cross.
Force? Why force?
Wasn’t He goodness and mercy?
Shouldn’t one want to help Him carry the cross?
Not I.
I had to be forced.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
How seldom I am Veronica, and how often I am those women weeping for myself.
Do I really love Him?
Who do I focus on my pain, my desires?
If I looked into His eyes, into His pain, His desires,
I would be Veronica always.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
He is ready to die for me.
Where am I?
He has been stripped.
Was it others who did this, or was it all those times
my pride wanted to keep the praise and glory that was rightfully His?
He stretches His hands to be nailed to the cross.
How could they do this to Him?
Why did they treat Him so cruelly?
They? Who are they?
Am I innocent?
He said “go and sin no more”
Have I always obeyed?
The nails are my disobedience.
He said “love one another as I have loved you”
Have I loved as He asked?
The nails are my judgements, my lack of concern, my self seeking.
Mother, my hands are full of His blood.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
He hangs on the cross.
Where am I?
He thirsts.
They give Him vinegar.
Is it my heart that has been as bitter as vinegar, that He thirsts to change?
Or do I give Him vinegar to drink in my choices for my self, my comforts before those of others?
Mother I was not standing with You at the foot of the cross.
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?
He has breathed His last.
My Lord and My God!
I see!
Is it too late that I see?
You have loved me and died for me.
You gave Your Mother to me,
dust of the earth.
I have come. I am there.
I look upon Your Body pierced for me.
Your blood has set me free.
Your blood is on my hands and Your blood is on my heart.
It covers me until my sin no longer exists.
Holy Mother, may I stand with You?
May I weep with You?
Forgive me.

Holy Mother, do you see me?
Forgiven and redeemed?
Can I kiss Him as He lays in Your arms?
How good You are!
You know what I have done, yet You tell me He is still mine.
His love has purchased my freedom from sin.
Freedom?
O Holy Mother! I give it back to You. My freedom is my gift to You.
Make it beautiful. Make me beautiful.
Let the ugliness of the past be lost forever in His Mercy - from Your heart to His.
Thank You for forgiving me.
I am Yours.
Do with me as He tells You.

 

[LilyM]

:crying: :crying: bewdeeful

 

[juno24]

Lovely poem! Who wrote it?

 

[Josephina]

There is a song that goes:
“Were you there when they crucified my Lord.”

In prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, it seemed that Jesus wanted the acknowledgement (there being “no time in God”), that I, and every sinner, were there.:crying:

Writing this was not about questioning whether Our Lady forgives, or that there should be any doubts about being forgiven by Her.
Its about every sinful soul being invited to accept the responsibility that we all have His “blood on our hands”, and that His Holy Mother, who suffered and sorrowed with Him, saw all.
In acknowledging that She “saw all”, we realize that as much as we hurt Her Son is as much as we hurt Her.
She sorrowed over every sin that Her Son bore, yet chose to forgive all.
How can we even begin to truly know Mary, ask Her intercession or ask that She teach us to know and love Her Son, if we do not first humble ourselves before Her with deep regret, not only for the pain our sin inflicted upon Her Jesus, but for the “sword that pierced Her soul”.
In one way or the other, every sinner has been that sword.
Yet She never once turned away from “those who crucified Her Son” and She never will.
Such love, such forgiveness, beyond our understanding and freely given, speaks to the greatest depths about the unfathomable beauty of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, and our mother.
Eternity will not be long enough to thank Her.

Her daughter,
Josephina

 

[InLight247]

Very moving!!
A very good reflection for Holy Week!

Thank you for sharing.

 

[marypar]

I rarely post, but this was incredibly moving and beautiful. Thank you. maryann

 

[Josephina]

**(This prayer is not a “revelation”…simply a heart imagining the Way of the Cross with her beautiful Mother) **

“and a sword shall pierce your own soul too…”

Father, My God, My delight! The time has come.
Beloved, our Son shall begin to die this night,
and I shall begin to die with Him.
Do not ask me to live, O Holy One!
How can I continue after He is gone?
My heart is His. It beats for Him alone.
Can it continue to beat if it has nothing to beat for?

Father, You ask too much!
Continue?
I must for the sake of those He shall leave behind?
For His Church?
Give me courage Father, for my heart grows faint.

Father! I hear Him! He calls!
The earth delivers His message.
He has been laden with the sin of the ages,
and His heart cries out,
begging mercy for those who shall deny Him,
for those who shall crucify Him throughout the ages.
His blood is already falling upon the parched land,
as mercy upon hearts of stone.
Why have they left Him alone?
My Lord and My God, hear my prayer,
give Him my heart to comfort Him!
Give Him One who will never leave Him!
Where are those who accompanied Him?
O God I must forgive, I must love.

Come Holy Spirit, come Holy Spouse of mine,
come give me courage and strength.

Father, the crowds condemn Him.
The innocent One they revile and spit upon.
O God of Mercy, have pity on me!
Have pity on them!

My Son, what are they doing to You?
The columns, hard and cold,
the whips, brutal and inhumane…
Stand firm my Son!
Father, give me life that I may give it back to Him!
See how they have plunged their hands into my chest
and plundered my heart?
Every blow upon His body resounds upon my heart.

My God, My Son!
I see You suffer for all You have loved and created.
They tear out Your flesh in pieces.
Where has it gone?
I see. I see. Parts of Your “Body” have been torn away,
the separated from the “Whole”.
My Son, how can they live separate from You?
I shall find them.
I offer the calumny they shall speak against My holy virginity,
that they may return to You,
and that Your Body be whole.

Father, His blood is everywhere!
I cannot bear it.
They do not allow me to be close to Him.
Come holy Angels!
Come and gather the Blood of the Lamb,
that it may mark every “household”, every heart, throughout humanity.
Let none escape!
I give You my desire to die with Him,
that all may live under the mercy of His Blood.

My God, My God, He comes to receive the cross.
He embraces it.
Do You see Him Father? He receives it from You, for their redemption.
It is Your hand that He kisses.
My beautiful, beautiful Boy, how You love them!
Look at me, my child, my Son, my God…
My heart no longer beats.
Its rhythm has become lash after lash.
You fall!
Cruel earth, He created you and you offer Him only pain!
Cruel earth, He gave you lush gardens and you gave Him thorns!
Cruel children, He came to earth for you, and you have given your love to all but Him!
Yet He loves you, He forgives you,
and I love you, I forgive you.

Father, take my beauty.
I accept all the ugliness man shall heap upon my holiness
that their cruelty become goodness beyond compare.

Simon…Veronica! Thank you!
May your offering to Him resound throughout humanity
from beginning to end,
and gather many such offerings.

Father, the end is near.
The executioners are ready.
My Son, here I am!
My soul has been pierced with pain and sorrow.
I draw my will to continue from Your Blood upon my heart!
Forgive them?
Yes, My Son, yes.
You forgive and I forgive.
Our hearts sorrow as One.
Our hearts forgive as One.
Our hearts die as One.

Father! He has breathed His last.
He suffers no more.
How I suffer still!
Yes, Father, yes…I give to You this suffering!
Take it Holy One, expand it.
Let me suffer that they will not have to pay the price that their sin has cost Him.
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!

Mercy, love, forgiveness!
They shall be His Father.
They ARE His Father…now and forever!
Every knee SHALL bend and every tongue confess He is Lord!

My Son, my Lord, my God,
You shall rise from the dead on Easter morn’,
We await You.

 

[tptram]

beautiful
thank you
Tak

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Holy Mother, do you see me? Can You forgive me?

This is theologically awkward, because the saints don’t forgive us - God does; only God can forgive. That’s why acts of contrition (for example) begin “O God”, rather than “O mother of God”. If the saints could forgive us, it would be appropriate to offer Mass to them - if one sacrament were in honour of a saint, any sacrament could be. And that would be to confuse the Creator with the creature.​

Devotion to the saints is all very well, but there are some things they can’t be asked to do, some things that cannot be said without error. This is one of those things. ##

 

[LilyM]

This is theologically awkward, because the saints don’t forgive us - God does; only God can forgive. That’s why acts of contrition (for example) begin “O God”, rather than “O mother of God”. If the saints could forgive us, it would be appropriate to offer Mass to them - if one sacrament were in honour of a saint, any sacrament could be. And that would be to confuse the Creator with the creature.​

Devotion to the saints is all very well, but there are some things they can’t be asked to do, some things that cannot be said without error. This is one of those things. ##

Well, anytime we hurt or harm any person, it’s appropriate (and even necessary if possible) to ask them directly for their forgiveness. I’d say since each of us individually is directly responsible for the Crucifixion of Mary’s son and all the attendant suffering she went through, it’s quite appropriate to ask her forgiveness for inflicting that upon her.

 

[Josephina]

Well, anytime we hurt or harm any person, it’s appropriate (and even necessary if possible) to ask them directly for their forgiveness. I’d say since each of us individually is directly responsible for the Crucifixion of Mary’s son and all the attendant suffering she went through, it’s quite appropriate to ask her forgiveness for inflicting that upon her.

Thank you. This is where I felt the Holy Spirit led my heart, and it seemed Jesus - not Mary - desired this of me.