The Virgin Mary is always willing to dry the tears of her children, says Cardinal Rylko

The arciprest of the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, presided this Saturday the celebration of the mother’s time in which he encouraged to resort to Mary because “she is always willing to dry the tears of her children.”

For more than thirty years he has been the Roman Basilica is host of the mother’s time, a celebration that takes place on Holy Saturday in the morning to remember “the culmination of the long and hard path of faith of Mary, which at the foot of the crucifix was associated with the sacrifice of her son, welcoming as children all men redeemed by Christ”, as explained in 2023 a note of Vatican News.

In that sense, in his homily on April 19, the purple indicated that Holy Saturday is “a day of great silence, a day of great wait.”

Cardinal Rylko focused his reflection on two aspects: the first is the cry of Mary that experienced the “unspeakable pain” of Jesus’ agony in the Golgotha. However, he pointed out that it is a crying that should not fear, because as Pope Francis explained, “tears sometimes do us well, purify our gaze towards God and to others.”

According Vatican Newsthe second aspect is the donation that Christ makes by trusting his mother to the apostle John, saying “There you have your mother!”

With these words Jesus extended “the spiritual motherhood of Mary to the whole Church.” “At that time,” he said, “We all become her children and she in our mother. This is the immense gift that Christ gave us in the last moments of his life on the cross!”

“We have a mother in the sky that loves us, a mother full of compassion for each one of us, who is by our side in the tests of life, in the sufferings we face in our way,” said Cardinal Rylko.

The purple recalled that the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor is not only the oldest Marian temple in Rome and the West, but is also the “bridge between the East and West” because it welcomed “the first Eucharistic celebration of Byzantine Rite, chaired by the saints Cirilo and Methodium.”

But in addition, it is the church where the image of the Virgin Salus Populi Romani is located, the devotion loved by Pope Francis to which his international trips entrusts.
This image has a detail that “not everyone notices,” he said. This is “a handkerchief in the left hand” to indicate that the Mother of God “is always willing to wipe the tears of her children.”

Therefore, he invited people to ask Mary to “accompany us on the roads, often tortuous, of our personal, family and social life.” She, whose faith did not even hesitate before “the Cross scandal and the sealed sepulcher containing the body” of the son, she who is a model of “unwavering hope”, be it “our safe guide to live this Easter,” he concluded.