9781644135945

The Light of the World
are most intimately united in their suffering and in their sacrifice. “O all you that pass by the
way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow” (Tract).
“Woman, behold thy son.” Looking down from the cross, Jesus beholds His mother and
His beloved disciple, St. John. Then He addresses Himself to His mother: “Woman, behold thy
son,” and to John He says, “Behold thy mother” (Gospel). This is the highest point in Mary’s
suffering. At the moment when she has given her Son the greatest possible proof of her mother
love; when she is sharing His suffering and His death agony, and lingers with Him in His last
moments, and when He, seeing her suffering, might have been expected to give her the most
perfect proof of His filial devotion, He addresses her merely as “Woman.” Now she is to accept
another as her son. Not only is she to lose her own Son through death — as if that were not suffering
enough — but instead she is to be the mother of a stranger. What an exchange! She must
accept John in exchange for Jesus, the servant for the Master, the son of Zebedee in exchange for
the Son of God (St. Bernard). But such is the will of God. Just as the offering of Jesus was made
perfect and complete by His Father’s abandonment of Him on the cross, so, too, the offering
of the mother received its crowning perfection when Jesus abandoned her as He hung on the
cross. The forsaking of the Son on the cross by the Father had its counterpart in the forsaking
of the mother by the Son. And as the greatest pain and suffering of the Son consisted in His
abandonment even by the Father; so the deepest pain of the mother as she stood under the
cross consisted in her abandonment by her Son. “Woman, behold thy son.” He has torn Himself
away from her completely in order that her cup of suffering may be filled. “O all you that pass
by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.”
Mary has followed her Son to the very foot of the cross. She is the true mother, the valiant
mother, the mother prepared for any sacrifice. She shared with Jesus all His sufferings and
humiliations. She will not allow Him to drink His chalice of humiliation alone. She does not
shrink from approaching the very foot of His cross, thus making it known to all that she is the
mother of the condemned one. She is prepared for any suffering. She does not cry out, “This
is too much.” In spite of all the bitterness which life brings she has but one guiding principle:
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word” (Lk 1:38).
Mary gives up her son. Every sweet memory that remains to her from her motherhood
she now joins to the offering she is making at the foot of the cross. This abandonment of every
earthly tie with Jesus only tends to make her more truly the mother of the Lord. Now she is no
longer merely the mother of the incarnate Jesus, as she had been at the time of His conception
and birth; she has become the mother of His mystical body, the mother of His holy Church.
Now she no longer knows “Christ according to the flesh” (2 Cor 5:16), but according to the
spirit, having become the mother of “a new creature” (2 Cor 5:17), who is born through Christ’s
death on the cross. She is now the mother of the whole Christ, the new Eve, the mother of the
living, the mother of us all. Mary gave birth to us spiritually at the foot of the cross, and that
birth was accompanied by unspeakable labor and pain. On Easter she will receive Jesus again,
but she will not forget that He has given her to us in His stead, and that she must love us as she
loved Him. Christ bound us intimately to His blessed mother as she stood beneath the cross.
The cost of becoming our mother was tremendous. We are indeed the children of pain, and
for that reason the more dear to her. The same consideration should make us the more grateful
and devoted to her.
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