IX Mystery: At the Foot of the Cross of Her Son, Mary Becomes our Mother

Meanwhile, 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.  John 19:25-27

Solidarity despite the pain
There is nothing that makes you more aware of yourself, more self-conscious, than pain. Provoking pain is really one of the best ways to call yourself to attention, even if it is brought on by biting your own lip or digging a fingernail into a nailbed.

Jesus suffered in his body from exhaustion on his way to the cross, from the lack of food and sleep, from the feeling of asphyxiation caused by being nailed to a cross, from the loss of much blood caused by the scourging and the crown of thorns driven into his head, and from the nails that were hammered into his wrists and ankles.

Jesus suffered in his heart because he had been handed over to the high priests and the Romans by one of his own, one who ate, slept and accompanied him everywhere; he suffered because the rest of the disciples had abandoned him, he suffered because the ungrateful people, the same people who had benefited from his miracles and who had previously acclaimed him as ‘Hosanna, the Son of David!’, are now shouting, "Crucify Him!", putting pressure on Pilate to do their will.

He suffered in his soul because God His Father who during his life was so close to Him and to whom he often turned, with whom he communicated before the most important moments and miracles, this omnipresent Father was now distant or Jesus felt this way when he said, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).

Even though he was suffering this triple forms of pain – in his body, heart, and soul – Jesus still thought more of others than of Himself. Pain absorbs us, makes us focus on ourselves, and we easily forget about others. Think about the times when we suffered a strong pain, like a toothache: it seems that everything and everyone disappears around us, only we exist, only we matter.

Jesus, despite his personal suffering, was able to empathize with his poor mother who, like the widow of Nain, was going to be left alone in the world. And even on the cross without much he could do, he entrusted her to his beloved disciple. He who had already given us everything, who had given himself, now gives us his beloved mother as an inheritance. We inherit so many things from Jesus, even his own mother.

Before Jesus, we were only creatures made in the image and likeness of God; with Jesus we are adopted by God as His children, and as Jesus entrusted his mother to the beloved disciple, to the extent that we too are disciples of Jesus, we are adopted by Mary his mother as her children as well.

The only son of his mother who was already a widow
As we contemplate Mary at the foot of her son's cross, we cannot fail to recall the episode of the widow of Nain who was about to bury her only son, being already a widow and thus alone in the world. This suffering was also destined for Mary and prophesied by Simeon.

"In hunting, love and war, for one pleasure comes one hundred sorrows", or "Those whose objective is to love, will meet suffering on the way ". There is no love without suffering, and Mary's love for God's plan and the only begotten Son of God, also her son, brought her more pain than pleasure, more suffering than joy. And this ultimate suffering was the worst of all...

"I'm not going to bury my son, my son is going to bury me," said a father who hijacked a hospital operating room and forced the doctor to operate on his son because he did not have the money for the lifesaving surgery. There can be no greater psychological pain than to watch one’s child suffer and die, while unable to do anything...

In the natural order of events, first the parents die, then the children. Therefore, to watch a child die goes against the natural order of things disabling the lives of the parents, as they leave this world without being able to leave their inheritance to their child, be it genetic or material.

Mary, our mother in heaven
In Heaven, in Heaven, in Heaven, /One day I will see her, (Mary)/
O pure Virgin, thy tenderness /Comes to soothe my pain; /Day and night shall I sing/ Of the beauty of Mary!

Before the apparitions of Fatima, little Lucia who never missed the rosary with her family or in the church, had as her favourite Marian canticle what is cited above. "To heaven, there shall I see her " referring to Mary; little did she know that she was going to see her here on earth, because to see her in heaven she would still have to wait almost one hundred years.

With my mother I will be /in holy glory one day/Together with the Virgin Mary /in heaven I will triumph.
In heaven, in heaven, with my mother I will be /In heaven, in heaven, with my mother I will be.

This other canticle also shows the affection the Portuguese people have for Mary. The songs before and after the apparitions of Fatima demonstrate how much the Portuguese people love their heavenly Mother.

The second part of the Hail Mary prayer lacks this detail, this affirmation that she is our mother. It should be like this: Holy Mary mother of God and our mother, pray for us, your sinful children, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

Like Abraham was to the people of Sodom and Moses to God's people, Mary was already our intercessor. Now with much more reason, she intercedes for us because in interceding for us, she is interceding for her children. As Abraham is our father in faith, Mary is our mother in faith; it was her faith, her "fiat", that brought salvation to all of us.

Mary, the feminine face of God
Some Jewish woman once asked another Jewish woman, that happened to be a university professor, who was in her opinion the most famous Jewish woman. And they did not like to hear from the lips of this Jewish professor by ethnicity and religion that, whether they liked it or not, Mary is certainly the most famous Jewess in the world, and I would even say of all humanity, because she is the mother of the incarnate Word, of the only begotten Son of God.

Within our vision of God which will always be somewhat anthropomorphic, if Jesus represents the masculine face of God, then Mary represents the feminine face of God. Our love for Mary reminds us of the times of old, when humanity, still in a primitive state of evolution, understood that God was a mother.

To do justice to those times, Pope John Paul I said that God, more than a Father, is a Mother. In Rembrandt's painting of the prodigal son, we see in fact that the father of the prodigal son has one feminine hand, the one over his son's heart, and the other a masculine hand.

Eve, our progenitor, Mary, our mother
Eve was not our mother, but our progenitor: she only gave birth to us, but she did not educate and raise us. The mother who educates, raises and feeds is called in Ethiopia "Injera enat", that is, the "bread mother" which often does not coincide with the one who gave birth to the child.

During my novitiate, I had as a colleague and student of theology, a young man who called his aunt his mother and his mother his aunt. The one who had given birth to him, he called his aunt, and the one who had raised him as a mother and who was biologically his aunt, he called his mother.

They were two sisters: one had my colleague by accident, but later met the man of her life, who did not accept her son, so her sister, who was not thinking of ever getting married, stayed with him so that the sister who gave birth would be free to start a new life with her fiance.

My colleague had no filial feelings toward his biological mother whom he called aunt, and yet it was she who had given birth to him; he had filial feelings only for the one who had raised him with much love, educated and guided him through life, dedicating herself exclusively to him, because she had never wanted to get married. And yet, at a biological level, she was only his aunt.

In human beings, biology counts for little. We call her Mother Teresa of Calcutta and I suppose no one would dare to deny her the title of mother. However, as we all know, she was never a mother biologically, although she behaved as such to many orphaned children and even adults, who saw in her the mother they never had.
 
The devotion of the Christian people, at least of the Catholics and the Orthodox, to Mary is part of the closeness we have with our own mother on earth. She is closer to us than our father, and often, we make her the intermediary between us and him, because we share more confidence with our mother than with our father.

She is always by our side and accompanies us more than our father. This experience makes the Christian people have a special devotion to Mary and project on her the same experience, the same kind of relationship that they have or had with their mother.

Mary is our mother because, like every mother, she is attentive to the needs of her children, as she was at the wedding in Cana, and she is still visiting us today in Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima. Mary is our mother because she educates us with the gospel of her Son when she tells us, “Do whatever he tells you". Eve was our progenitor; Mary is our mother in heaven who accompanies us in our earthly life until we are united with her in Heaven.

The picture illustrating this text depicts St. Bernard, a great lover of Marian devotion, receiving the maternal milk of the Virgin Mary. An image that shocks our today’s mentality, but which was very much in line with the medieval Marian piety that exalted the breasts of our heavenly mother as that woman in Luke’s Gospel exalted them.

Also known as originated from Saint Bernard is the Marian prayer called the "Memorare" which exalts Mary as mother and, as such, an intercessor for us in Heaven:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that  
anyone who fled to your protection,
implored your help, or sought your intercession,
was left unaided.

Inspired with this confidence,
I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.
To you do I come.
Before you do I stand,
Sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
Despise not my petitions,
But in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

Conclusion: Eve is our progenitor, Mary is our Mother, for it is she who educates us, giving birth to the Word of God in human form, the role model of humanity: Jesus of Nazareth.

Fr Jorge Amaro, IMC