Mary and the Suffering of Co-Redemption

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows

In EMV 242.6, the Virgin Mary accompanies and consoles Mary of Magdala (Magdalene) who is returning to Tiberias after her recent conversion. She must endure the remarks and jeers of her former admirers. Mockery and contempt are also directed at Jesus by a scribe: the "Saint" is walking with a sinner! Mary Magdalene suffers from being the cause of his suffering.

- "No, they are stubbornly closed to the Light," says the Virgin Mary. "He, my Jesus, is the Eternal Misunderstood and He always will be, more and more."

- "And you don't suffer because of it? You seem so serene to me."

- "Be quiet. It is as if my Heart were wrapped in sharp thorns. With every breath, they hurt me, but He must not know it! I show myself this way to support Him with my serenity. If His Mother does not comfort Him, where can my Jesus find comfort?"

Theological Commentary by Maria Valtorta

This note was written on four pages of a folded Fireillet and inserted at this passage of the typed copy. It sheds light on the Virgin Mary's participation in Jesus' path of Redemption:

"‘It is as if my Heart were wrapped in sharp thorns’," says Mary.

Even among Catholics, some say that Mary, being full of Grace, experienced only joy and did not inherit suffering, because suffering is one of the punishments due to original sin and the inheritance from Adam, fallen from his state of Grace.

These individuals will therefore find these words of Mary, Virgin and Mother, inaccurate, just as they will consider unacceptable her tearing of the Holy Saturday evening.

But they must consider that while it is true that Mary, being immaculate, should have been exempt from suffering just as she was exempt from the corruption of death, it is also true that, as Co-Redemptrix, she "had to" suffer, in her immaculate Heart and Soul, what her Son suffered in His flesh, Heart, and spirit.

Better still, precisely thanks to the fullness of all divine gifts she had in her, she understood that her privileged and “unique” conditions of Immaculate and Mother of God were granted to her with regard to the Passion of the Redeemer, and thus that her very particular condition of glory, inferior only to the infinite glory of God, had been given to her at the price of the sacrifice of the Son of God, her child, the total outpouring of that divine Blood and the immolation of that divine Flesh which were formed in her virginal womb, with her virginal blood, and which had been nourished by her virginal milk.

Even this knowledge was a source of pain. Pain that united with joy, as vast and deep as it was. For the one "who was placed as a sign of Contradiction among men" (Luke 2:34, Prediction of the old man Simeon) was cause of opposition between immense joys and sufferings also for the Woman: His Mother.

And I add this: always thanks to the fullness of divine gifts which was in her, Mary knew, either in anticipation or simultaneously and intellectually, all the complex suffering of her Son. Upon her immaculate Soul, full of the light of God, the painful shadow of the Cross and of all the battles and obstacles that had to precede the Passion and afflict her Jesus always was projected.

From the beginning of her Mission as Mother of the Son of God, She was alone with the Only One, with the great Misunderstood. Him and Her, alone, facing the oceanic immensity of their Mission of love and the hatred of the world. Both obedient, one unto death on the cross, the other unto the renunciation and death of all maternal right, traveled together on the path marked by the unfathomable will of God with firm steps of heroes and saints who, beyond the harshness of the path, suffer from the world's misunderstanding.

And the Mother was by herself the "world" for her Son; truly the Only One to bring comforting help and to care for her Child, who alone felt all the secret and complex sufferings that made the earthly life of Christ a long Gethsemane and a long Passion, culminating in the true Gethsemane and the Great Passion.

From the cradle to the Cross, Mary was entirely for Jesus, and Jesus had all of Mary.

Peaceful, even more so: serene, almost ignorant of the Future, she always had the smile and the word for Jesus that comforted the Afflicted Master and consoled the Divine Martyr.

Like a sea that hides storms deep beneath the laughing blue of its calm waters, until "all is accomplished," she brought, dignified, strong and gentle all at once, all the support to her Son. Only after letting the ramparts of her Soul’s strength collapse and the ocean of her sorrow as Mother and Believer overwhelmed her—as long as God allowed it—so that she could be the Co-Redemptrix even more. It was only from that moment that she let the dams of her courage collapse and the ocean of her Motherly and Believing pain overwhelmed her, as long as God permitted her, so that she could be the Co-Redemptrix even more.

Mary: the eternal Angel of comfort of Jesus, with a real or spiritual Presence.

Only twice, and the Gospel says so, Angels replaced the Mother in serving and comforting Christ. And this happened at two crucial moments in the earthly life of Jesus Christ (Matthew 4:11, Jesus tempted by Satan in the desert and Luke 22:43, in Gethsemane). This also did not depend on the negligence of the Mother but on the will of God, especially at Gethsemane which was the moment of great abandonments to make the Passion complete and perfect.

In these two moments, let readers reflect on the absence of Mary, eternal Victor over Satan and Cause of joy for all, and above all for the God-Man, whom Satan sought to tempt: directly the first time (Matthew 4:1-11), then through a “sorrow unto death” (Matthew 26:38) the second time, so that the plan of Infinite Mercy in the Confession of the children of Adam might not be fulfilled. But he was defeated, because Mary, God though absent by divine decree, prayed and supported by praying her Jesus in the supreme Struggle.

Mary was truly the Comfort and Co-Participant in the Mission and Passion of the Son. Truly her Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart, wounded by all the tortures of misunderstandings, slanders, hatreds, betrayals which simultaneously wounded the Holy Hearts of both Mother and Son, held the balm to heal every wound of her Child.

She was really "the fragrant wine" mentioned in the Song (Song of Songs 8:2). And "standing by the cross" (John 19:25), as she had always been by the cradle and in the carpenter’s workshop, at the feet of the Master, or following Him as much as she could, heroic in her agony, equally perfect in her dual love as Most Holy Mother and believer, was again, until the last breath of the Martyr, His Supreme Comfort.

As for her own internal but no less atrocious passion, it was consumed after the ninth hour; she freed her pain for the horrible deicide and the heartbreaking murder of the only Son of God and hers, for now He no longer had need of maternal Consolations.

The term "co-redemptrix" is synonymous with Soul-victim, Soul-repairer, or host, according to the vocabularies. In Maria Valtorta, the term co-redemptrix is often used, but the context leaves no Doubt as to its association (and not substitution) with the sufferings of the Passion.

Notes and references

Note: Quotations from the work of Maria Valtorta on this page currently use machine-translated text and will gradually be replaced by the official English translation. Until then, the official translation may be consulted through the reference link provided with each quotation.

The Gospel as it was revealed to me (Maria Valtorta).