Homily of Cardinal Mario Grech on the occasion of the Solemnity of MARIA MATER JESU CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM
Pontifical Mass, Notre-Dame Cathedral of Luxembourg, 25 May, 2025
A French version of the homily is available here.
There is no solution without comprehension, and no comprehension without empathy. This is not a philosophical axiom, but one of life’s lessons, and I’m certain that all of you here can associate yourselves with what I have just said. Recall that time in your life when you were going through a difficult period; what you desired was not a solution—deep down, you knew there wasn’t a quick and easy fix, or perhaps no solution at all—what you truly desired was to be understood. You wanted someone to reassure you that they grasped what was at stake and what you were feeling. You did not expect anyone to alleviate the burden you were carrying; you recognised that this was impossible. You simply wanted someone to share the burden and ease the load. But if a solution was nearly impossible, so too was finding someone to understand you. Why? Because empathy is a rare quality. Empathy does not mean observing from a distance; it means understanding by sharing another person's pains, sorrows, and burdens. Empathy is indeed a rare quality. There is no solution without comprehension, and no comprehension without empathy. Yet often, there is neither a solution nor comprehension, because there is no empathy.
While it is difficult to find examples of empathy in our lives, today’s gospel provides numerous instances of empathy. It is a short account of suffering, in which many names—ironically, a lot of names, considering the brevity of the text—are mentioned. We have Jesus, Mary, John, Mary Magdalen, and the other Mary, not to mention the onlookers, those who are present yet remain unnamed. It is crucial not to overlook an important aspect that could easily be missed. This is not merely a group of individuals who happen to be in the same place at the same time, each suffering in isolation. No, this is a community of people, united in their shared suffering. While everyone was experiencing the death of Jesus in their own personal way, they were nonetheless sharing in this collective suffering. The cavalry tells the story of many individuals suffering together, experiencing a shared pain.
Indeed, compassion is the appropriate word to describe this scene. Suffering-with, cum-passio. The Calvary is the authentic representation of empathy, of suffering-with, of cum-passio. First, you have the highest form of kindness and compassion, the dying Jesus Christ, in whom God suffers and dies with the human. You have the compassion of the bystanders, suffering with John and Mary. You have the compassion of John. ‘Here is your mother,’ Jesus tells him; share in her sufferings. Most importantly, in light of what we are celebrating today, there is the compassion of Mary. ‘Here is your son,’ Jesus tells her; share in his sufferings.
Let us, for a moment, focus on Mary's figure. Today, we celebrate her feast, venerate her under the title of Mother of the Afflicted, and commemorate the 400th anniversary of the attribution of this title to our Lady of Luxembourg. Much is implied in this title, and the gospel we have heard helps us better understand what is meant here. Mary is the mother of the afflicted because she suffers alongside them. But hers is no armchair suffering; she does not act as if she were suffering. She is the suffering mother, and it is precisely because she is herself a suffering mother that she can share in her children's pain. This is genuinely a scene of compassion, which reveals much about authentic empathy.
Mary can share the sufferings of her children because she is, herself, a suffering mother. To a certain extent, there is no genuine empathy if it is not wounded empathy. We can share one another’s sufferings and understand the woes of our neighbours because we, too, have our own sufferings, wounds, and problems. Compassion is not the suffering of the strong with the weak—that is condescension. Nor is it the suffering of the weak with the strong; that is servilism. Rather, it is the suffering of the weak with the weak, the wounded with the wounded, the burdened with the burdened. That is the scene presented to us at Calvary: a wounded mother suffering with her wounded children. That is empathy. And let us remember where we started from. There is no solution without comprehension, and no comprehension without empathy. Furthermore, we can add: there is no empathy without the recognition of the wounds that the ones called to empathise also carry.
But as I was saying earlier, Calvary is not merely the scene of a group of individuals; it is a community of people, a community of suffering believers—those who believed in Christ but are now enduring the tragedy of his death. Indeed, we have an Ekklesia here, a group of believers united in their suffering. What we said about Mary does not apply to her simply as an individual, but also to her as a representative of the Church. What we observe happening in Mary, and beyond her, to all the people gathered at the foot of the cross, serves as an image of the Church. The Church can never practise genuine empathy if it does not first recognise its own wounds. The path to authentic empathy and reconnection with the people, particularly those who suffer, begins with acknowledging our own injuries, failures, wounds. Only a wounded Church can comprehend the wounds of the people; or rather, only a wounded Church that acknowledges its wounds can truly understand the wounds of others.
But I wish to add another detail. The wounded Church at Calvary is the Church that announces the risen Christ on Pentecost. The suffering people at the moment of the passion of the Lord are the same individuals who, at the moment of Pentecost, are full of passion in proclaiming the risen Lord. I’m struck by the fact that in most languages, passion can signify both extreme suffering and extreme enthusiasm to do something—consider the words passion, passione, passion, Leiden, and Leidenschaft. There is a link between suffering and the passion for something, and this applies perfectly to the Church. There is a link between the wounds of the Church and its passion to evangelise. Our passion for evangelisation will be artificial if it does not spring out of our wounds and God’s healing grace. This jubilee year is dedicated to hope. Our passion to give hope will be unconvincing if we attempt to portray a perfect Church; there is no perfect Church. Our passion to spread the gospel and give hope will only be compelling if it originates from our wounds and remains bound to them. Come and see what the Lord has done…. We are living examples of wounded people, healed by the Lord, who still bear and never deny the traces of our wounds and fragilities. This is what being pilgrims of hope truly means: We walk with the wounded people because we are ourselves the wounded people.