Today’s homily: Our Lady of Perpetual Succour

Behold the Lamb; Behold Thy Mother

MASS Gaudeamus
LESSON Ecclesiasticus 24: 23-31
GOSPEL St John 19: 25-27
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The liturgy gives us today two commands, and between them lies the whole mystery of our salvation.

Saint John the Baptist, whose Nativity we continue to honour within its Octave, points towards Jesus and cries: “Behold the Lamb of God.” Christ, from the throne of His Cross, looks towards the beloved disciple and says: “Behold thy mother.”

Behold the Lamb. Behold thy Mother.

Saint John directs us to the Victim who takes away the sins of the world. Our crucified Redeemer gives us the Mother who stood beside His sacrifice. The Precursor shows us the source of salvation; Christ gives us the maternal succour by which the redeemed are guarded upon the road to eternal life.

The sacred image honoured upon this feast brings these two mysteries together. It is not merely a tender picture of the Mother and Child. It is an icon of the Passion.

The Archangels Michael and Gabriel approach bearing the instruments of Calvary: the cross, the nails, the lance, and the sponge. The Divine Child turns towards His Mother and clasps her hand. He is still held within her arms, but the shadow of the Cross has already fallen across His infancy.

Mary knows what those instruments signify. The little hands resting in hers will be pierced. The sacred Head leaning towards her will be crowned with thorns. The Body sheltered beneath her mantle will be scourged, stripped, and nailed to the wood. She holds Him now as a Child; she will receive Him again when His dead Body is taken down from the Cross.

Yet the eyes of the Blessed Virgin are not fixed upon the instruments, nor even upon the Child. They are turned towards us.

The Child beholds the Cross. The Mother beholds those for whom He will suffer.

Her gaze reveals the nature of her motherhood. She does not possess Christ for herself. She has received Him in order to give Him. At Nazareth she consented to His Incarnation; at Bethlehem she presented Him to the world; at Calvary she consented to the sacrifice for which He had taken flesh.

She is the Mother of the Lamb.

This is why the Introit can summon the Church to joy: “Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

It is not the shallow joy of those who imagine that sorrow can be excluded from the Christian life. The instruments of the Passion are already present. Rather, it is the supernatural joy of knowing that suffering has been redeemed and death conquered. The Angels rejoice because through Mary the eternal Son received the human nature in which He could suffer, the Body that would be offered, and the Blood that would be poured out for the salvation of mankind.

Calvary is terrible because sin is terrible. Yet Calvary is glorious because there the Lamb conquers by being slain.

The title of this feast must therefore be rightly understood. Our Lady is called the Mother of Perpetual Succour, not because she promises to preserve us from every cross, but because she will not abandon us beneath the Cross.

The sacred image itself forbids a sentimental understanding of her protection. Mary does not make the instruments of suffering disappear. She does not turn the Child away from His appointed hour. She strengthens and shelters Him in His sacred humanity as He advances towards the fulfilment of His Father’s will.

So does she help us.

We often ask for the removal of affliction; she obtains the grace by which affliction may sanctify us. We ask to be spared humiliation; she asks that humility may be born within us. We ask that the chalice pass away; she teaches us to say with her Son: “Not my will, but Thine be done.”

Her succour does not lead us around Calvary. It keeps us faithful upon the road that passes through it.

The Collect speaks of “all the vicissitudes of this wayfaring life.” The Church does not flatter us with the promise of earthly stability. This life is a pilgrimage. Health fails, friendships alter, plans collapse, grief enters the home, temptations return, and the soul itself seems divided between its desire for God and its attachment to created things.

We are wayfarers, not yet possessors. We walk through a world in which everything changes and in which our own hearts are often the most changeable things of all.

For such a journey, God has given us a Mother.

The Gospel takes us to the foundation of her maternal office: “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother.”

Mary stands. The sword foretold by Simeon passes through her soul, but sorrow does not overthrow her faith. She does not flee from the spectacle of apparent defeat. She stands beside the altar upon which the true Lamb is offered.

Our Lord sees His Mother and the disciple whom He loved. He says to her: “Woman, behold thy son.” Then He says to the disciple: “Behold thy mother.”

These words cannot be reduced to a private arrangement for Mary’s earthly support. They are spoken from the Cross at the supreme hour of redemption. Christ is establishing the order of grace. As His Blood purchases the Church, He gives His Mother to the Church.

Saint John receives her in the name of every beloved disciple.

“And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.”

This is the demand of the feast. It is not enough to admire Mary, to praise her privileges, or to place flowers before her image. The disciple must take her into his own: into his prayer, his home, his temptations, his sorrows, his duties, and his whole pursuit of holiness.

Have we truly taken Mary into our own?

Is she honoured within our homes as their Mother and Queen? Is the Rosary prayed with fidelity? Do we invoke her when temptation begins, or only when it has almost overcome us? Do we entrust to her those whom we love but cannot protect by our own strength? Do we ask her to obtain for us not merely earthly relief, but final perseverance?

To take Mary into our own is also to permit her to lead us away from sin. True devotion to the Immaculate Virgin cannot coexist peacefully with deliberate attachment to that which crucified her Son. We cannot sincerely seek shelter beneath her mantle while refusing the commandments of Christ.

Her perpetual succour is not given to make us comfortable in sin. It is given to rescue us from sin.

Here the commemoration of Saint John the Baptist belongs at the heart of the feast. His entire mission was preparation and repentance. He came to make straight the way of the Lord, to awaken the conscience, and to identify the Redeemer: “Behold the Lamb of God.”

Saint John points towards the Lamb at the Jordan. Mary presents the Lamb to the world and follows Him to Calvary. John prepares the path by preaching penance. Mary sustains the penitent upon that path by her maternal intercession.

John declares: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Mary says: “Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.”

Neither keeps the soul for himself. Both direct us wholly towards Christ.

The Baptist teaches that there can be no salvation without conversion. Our Lady teaches that there need be no despair for the sinner who desires conversion. John calls us to abandon sin; Mary helps us to return to her Son. John gives severity to our devotion, lest it become sentimentality. Mary gives tenderness to our repentance, lest it collapse into discouragement.

We need both voices.

We need Saint John to tell us the truth about our sins. We need Mary to remind us of the mercy of her Son.

The Epistle places upon her lips the words: “I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.”

She is the Mother of fair love because her love is pure, ordered, and free from possession. She loves Christ perfectly, and therefore gives Him perfectly for the accomplishment of the divine will.

She is the Mother of holy fear because she teaches us to fear sin more than suffering. The world fears poverty, rejection, illness, and death, yet treats the loss of sanctifying grace as a small matter. Mary teaches us the true order of things: no earthly calamity is comparable to separation from God.

She is the Mother of knowledge because she teaches us to judge everything in the light of eternity. The world sees Calvary and calls it failure. Mary beholds the obedience of the Son and the victory of redeeming love.

She is the Mother of holy hope because she teaches the contrite sinner never to measure the mercy of God by the limits of human weakness. Holy hope does not excuse sin. It looks upon the price paid for its forgiveness and refuses to despair.

All that Mary possesses comes from Christ. She is not the source of grace apart from Him. She is the masterpiece of His grace. She does not compete with the one Mediator; she manifests the fruitfulness of His mediation.

Her hand points towards Him. Her greatness returns us to Him. Her whole maternal office consists in bringing us to Christ, keeping us near Christ, and restoring us to Christ when we have wandered.

The Offertory therefore prays: “Remember, O Virgin Mother, that thou speak good things for us in the sight of God.”

What good things does Mary speak for us? She pleads the merits of her Son. She presents His obedience, His wounds, and His Precious Blood. Her intercession is powerful because no created will has ever been more perfectly united to the will of God.

At this Mass, the Lamb whom Saint John proclaimed becomes sacramentally present upon the altar.

The same Body formed within Mary is offered beneath the sacred species. The same Blood derived from her immaculate substance is made present as the price of our redemption. The sacrifice of Calvary is not repeated, but its one saving oblation is made present in the midst of the Church.

Mary belongs spiritually beside the altar because the altar makes present the sacrifice beside which she stood. She is neither priest nor victim: Christ alone is the eternal High Priest and the spotless Victim. Yet she is the Mother whose consent accompanied His earthly oblation and whose faith teaches the Church how to stand beneath the Cross.

The Communion antiphon therefore asks her to pray “for our peace and salvation,” because she has brought forth “Christ the Lord, the Saviour of us all.”

Every Marian title returns us to Jesus. She is Queen because she is the Mother of the King. She is our succour because she brought forth our Saviour. She obtains peace because she gave the world Him who is our peace.

When we approach Holy Communion, let us ask Our Lady to teach us how to receive her Son. No creature ever welcomed Him with such faith, adored Him with such purity, or surrendered herself so completely to His will.

We come distracted, burdened, and often lukewarm. Let us ask her to place us beside her, to supply by her prayers what is lacking in our devotion, and to teach us to offer ourselves with the Victim whom we receive.

Her help is perpetual because our dependence is perpetual. We need her not only in extraordinary danger, but in the daily struggle for fidelity: when prayer grows dry, when duty becomes burdensome, when resentment takes root, when temptation returns, and when the promises of the world appear more immediate than the promises of God.

Then the two commands of this feast must sound again within the soul.

“Behold the Lamb of God.”

“Behold thy mother.”

Behold the Lamb who takes away sin. Behold the Mother who leads sinners back to the Lamb. Behold the Victim upon the altar. Behold the Mother who stood beneath His Cross. Behold the Saviour who gives Himself for us. Behold the Mother whom He gives to us.

Let us take her into our own from this hour.

Let us place in her hands our sins, our fears, our homes, our loved ones, and the hour of our death. Let us ask her not for an easier road, but for fidelity upon the road to heaven; not for freedom from every cross, but for union with the Crucified; not merely for comfort in this life, but for the rewards of everlasting redemption.

When the Cross appears, may she keep our eyes fixed upon the Lamb.

When conscience accuses us, may Saint John’s call to repentance turn us again towards Christ.

When weakness tempts us to despair, may the Mother of holy hope remind us that the Blood of her Son was shed for our salvation.

And when our pilgrimage ends, may the Mother given to us from the Cross stand beside us still, so that the last command heard by the dying Christian may be the command of Jesus Himself:

“Behold thy mother.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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