Mary: The Tomb Emptied, Conceived In A Woman's Hope And Echoes “Basta”

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

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n His agony at Gethsemane, Jesus prayed with such anguish that His sweat became like drops of blood (Lk 22:44). When He returned to His friends, they were asleep—not because they were indifferent, but because they were exhausted by sorrow. This is grief that paralyzes, that renders even the most loyal heart unable to stand.

And in this hour of dread, Christ stood alone—or so it seemed.

Because Mary was there. In body, in spirit, in soul, in full solidarity of love, she kept vigil. As Jesus bled in the garden, she bled interiorly, fulfilling the prophecy of Simeon: “And you yourself a sword shall pierce.” Her Fiat—the yes she gave in joy at the Annunciation—now took its darkest, sharpest form in silence and surrender.

This is where San Bernardino De Siena's insight pierces the heart. He speaks not just of thinking about Christ, or understanding His pain from afar, but feeling it from within—hoc enim sentite in vobis—“feel this within yourselves.”

To see someone suffer and to understand them is noble. But to suffer with them, to feel their torment in your own flesh, is what only love can do. And this is what Mary did. St Paul once wrote about "hoping against hope," which points to Abraham’s faith and hope that transcends the apparent impossibility of having descendants at his and Sarah's old age. This is Mary's hope. "This is the hope that does not disappoint" (Rom 5:5).

Likewise, Origen interprets “hope against hope” as two kinds of hope—natural and spiritual: “The first hope is according to nature and reason, which saw no possibility. The second is the hope that comes from faith, which clings to the promise of God" (Commentary on Romans, Book 4). He elaborates that Abraham is a model of the Christian who learns to abandon human calculation and instead lean fully on divine promise.

Perhaps, like the mothers of the two thieves at Jesus's side, Mary stood before the Cross, feeling it all and hoping against hope. She felt. She participated. She shared the pain not as a witness only, but as one interiorly crucified. It is not hope if it cannot bear the pain. Hope says: “Yes, this hurts, but I trust that God is at work even here.”

And so, on Black Saturday, when the tomb is sealed and the world seems godless and hollow, Mary remains the one who still believes. She is the image of the empty tomb, not because she is void, but because she has made space for radical hope. Her womb was once filled with the Word made flesh; now, in its echo, it is filled with the hope of Resurrection.

The word "basta" in Spanish (and also in Italian and Filipino) generally means: Enough. Mary is the one who says, with quiet conviction, “Basta.” For Mary, hope is enough. Grace is enough. God is enough. Even in silence, even in absence, even in death.

On this darkest day, when heaven seems mute and earth weeps, Mary stands as the beating heart of the Church, suffering within herself the full weight of the Cross, and still choosing to hope.

She is not simply our model of obedience. She is our model of partaking. And in her, we learn not just to reflect on Christ, not just to understand Him, but to feel with Him, to suffer with Him, to hope with Him.

So let us draw near to the tomb that is not entirely empty—for Mary waits there, full of grace, full of feeling, full of hope.

And from her "pierced" heart, we hear again and again the heartbeat of faith, hope, and love, and reechoed in the word:

“Basta.”

This is enough.

This is the hope that remains. Fr JM Manzano SJ

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I am grateful to all my retreatants who have mirrored the mysteries within the hallowed walls of my consultation room for all to see. Mutual prayers. Basta!