Fr Clovis on Our Lady’s triumph over doubt

Our Lord, when he began his ministry, before he began his ministry was was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. The temptation that he faced was exactly that which we ourselves face, in which our first parents faced in Eden. It’s temptation of the world, the flesh and the devil. And equally, Our Lady endured these temptations as well. The fact that she had consecrated her virginity to God was itself a challenge, but it was one that she triumphed, for which reason the Church doesn’t just call her a virgin but Ever Virgin, and in particular, Virgin of Virgins because of the particular victory that she had.

The greater battle that she had to face was, in fact, in the confrontation with Satan, the temptation to doubt, because that was the temptation by which Eve was overcome; she doubted God’s word. God had said, “you shall not eat of it. The day you eat of it you will die.” God was very definite and very clear on this matter but Eve doubted this, and she said to the serpent, “God said we shouldn’t eat of it. Perhaps we might die.” Our Lady likewise at the foot of the cross stood there, and the possibility of doubt did arise when her son expired, and his dead body was placed in her arms. What grief she must have endured. The grief that she endured was of such intensity that most of the mystics, especially those who have written about the life of Our Lady, said that if God had not kept her alive, she would have died of grief.

But that is not where the battle ended because, on Holy Saturday, no one believed he would rise from the dead. The authorities thought the body might be stolen, but they didn’t believe he would rise from the dead. The Apostles certainly did not believe ,and even when he did rise, they doubted, they were skeptical.

And so, Our Lady alone believed, and all of Holy Saturday she was tormented by Satan. He was trying to seduce her into believing that Christ would not rise, that God would not keep his word, that everything that happened was but again to be played. But no, she stood manfully and she won the victory, believing firmly that her son, who is God, would rise and rise from the dead he did, rising on that Easter Sunday. To whom else would he first appear, if not to her? Yet scripture doesn’t tell us he appeared to her, but we can be absolutely certain that he did, and she would be, of course, being the first to rejoice in the resurrection of her son, for she had been faithful up until this moment, and indeed for the rest of her life, for which reason the Church calls her Virgin Most Faithful.

Father Linus Clovis, homily on Our Lady of Akita