And the real test, the ultimate test, of whether we have effectively made Our Blessed Lord the King of our lives will be suffering – or rather, what we make of suffering when it strikes us.

It was so with Our Blessed Lord when the prophecy of the third gift, the myrrh, was fulfilled at the Crucifixion; when he hung there, denied by Peter, betrayed by Judas, forsaken by the rest, until it seemed that he was even forsaken by his Father also. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (NRSV, Mark 15:34, our emphasis).

But it was still “My God”, and the Suffering Saviour died in a holy, trustful calm because he had offered all his sufferings, including that dreadful moment, for the salvation of the world. “It is accomplished”. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Jerusalem Bible, John 19:30; NRSV, Luke 23:46, our emphasis).

It was so with his Blessed Mother. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord…,” she had said to the Archangel Gabriel (RSV, Luke 1:38), and she was proved to be the true handmaid of God when the prophecy of old Simeon was fulfilled at the foot of the Cross, and the sword pierced the soul of the Mother of Sorrows but could not for all that sever her attachment to God because she united and offered her sufferings with those of her Divine Son.