Consoling Thoughts From Father Faber

Mary must suffer for our sakes as well as for our dearest Lord. For is she not to be the Mother of consolation, the comfort of the afflicted? And for this end she must go down into the depths of every sorrow which the human heart can feel. As far as a simple creature can do so, she must fathom them all, and experience them in her own self, without even excepting sorrow for sin, though it cannot be for sin of her own, but in fact for ours. She must know the weight of our burdens and the kind of misery each brings along with it. It must be a science to her to be sure of the measure of consolation which our weak hearts require in their various trials, and what soothes and alleviates our suffering in all its manifold, unequal, and dissimilar circumstances.