Today, being a Saturday, it is a good opportunity to reflect a little on Our Lady and the Passion. Here is Julian of Norwich again: ‘Here I saw a part of the compassion of our Lady, Saint Mary: for Christ and she were so oned in love that the greatness of her loving was cause of the greatness of her pain. For in this I saw a Substance of Nature’s Love, continued by Grace, that creatures have to Him: which Kind Love was most fully shewed in His sweet Mother, and overpassing; for so much as she loved Him more than all other, her pains passed all other. For ever the higher, the mightier, the sweeter that the love be, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see that body in pain that is loved’.

‘The greatness of her loving was cause of the greatness of her pain’. She loved Him, yet she had to let Him go, to meet the end for which He had been born of her. Let us take our stand beside her as she stands by the Cross of her Son, and learn from her what it is to love deeply. May God be with you especially in this Holy Week which begins tomorrow, that it may be a blessing to you and to all those whom you bear in your heart.