John 19: 25-27
Standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Sit with Mary
I hate being reduced to silence. I pride myself on having something to say, something intelligent to offer. But there are moments when words fail, and here is one of them.
A mother is watching her son die. What does she look like, what is happening around her, what’s going on?... I am at a loss. It is just too terrible. I want to skip over it, to theologize it, to think about the resurrection, about the ending of the story that I know about but that those present at the scene couldn’t have.
Can I remain here with Mary and Jesus? The Church suggests every Friday of the year as a day of recollecting the Passion of the Lord. I have nothing to say now, but I will return again, and again, and again… to sit before the cross with Mary. May we all feel invited to do the same.
—John Stein, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Prayer
At the cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.
O sweet Mother! Font of love,
Touch my spirit from above,
Make my heart with yours accord.
—Excerpt from the Stabat Mater sequence