Today is the Good Friday, the last Friday in Lent. On this anniversary of Jesus’ death, let’s meditate Our Lady’s seventh sorrow: Christ’s burial.

The crucifixion is over, Christ’s body has been taken down from the cross, and His body has been prepared for burial. Joseph of Arimathea has offered his own newly cut tomb for Jesus to be laid in (Matt.27:60). Mary’s heart surely was breaking. Jesus, her Son and her God, was dead and being buried. The separation foreshadowed when He went missing in Jerusalem as a child all those years ago was now fulfilled and completed. The penetrating sword of sorrow made one more agonizing stab at her tender and immaculate heart. A greater pain cannot be imagined – for no pain is more intense than the thought that God has left you. Mary did not despair, because despair is sin, but it is certain that this final sorrow hurt her most excruciatingly.

Inspired by the seven sorrows of Our Lady, we should do two things with what is left of this Lent. First, make complete all of your efforts of penance and conversion from sin. Look at the terrible scars on Jesus’ body and resolve never more to hurt Him or His mother by your sins. Second, take heart! Christ died for all the sins of the world, but He does not want us just to focus only on our sin. He also rose on Easter morning to give us hope! We must throw off the load of sin and sorrow – then, and only then, will we be ready to join the Church in her great joy following the most majestic proof of God’s power.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!