Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me. —Job xix. 21.
NOW
there stood by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother." In this one
simple sentence, with its pathos and reticence, St. John relates the
tragedy of Our Lady's life. Her sufferings culminated in the supreme
sacrifice of her Son on Calvary when she stood beneath His Cross and
watched His sufferings, unable to relieve or comfort Him in any way;
and adding, in a measure, to His sufferings by her very presence.
What
an agony of pain must have passed over Mary's soul when she raised
her eyes and looked at her Divine Son on the Cross. What did His
Mother see ? Only one day before, and Christ had been the " most
beautiful amongst the children of men." He had left the
supper-room in Jerusalem in the perfection of His manhood. St. John
had leaned on His Sacred Breast carried away by love and the wondrous
attraction of His Personality. St. Peter had offered to lay down his
life for Him. The crowd in the Garden of Gethsemani had fallen to the
ground at the first sight of Him. And now— " Behold the Man !
" Mary sees her Son dying a criminal's death, hanging in
torments between two thieves, nailed to a cross in bitter pain ; His
Sacred Body covered with wounds : " From the sole of His Foot
unto the top of His Head there is no soundness therein" (Isaias
i. 6). His Head crowned with thorns ; His Eyes closed in pain ; Blood
flowing from His lacerated Hands and Feet— and His Mother remained
by His Cross until Death, at last, took pity upon Him and drew Him
away from His own creation which had crucified Him.
Oh,
Mary ! how could you have witnessed such a scene ! Ah ! you are His
Mother ; you learned suffering and sacrifice from Him ; learned it
because of your perfect love for Him ; and in the strength of that
love you take up your stand at the foot of the Cross as the Mother of
Sorrows, as the World's Heroine, as the " Queen of Martyrs."
Peerless among women, peerless among all the Saints of God, crowned
with modesty, purity and sinlessness, you are enabled to watch for
three hours the most terrible death the world has ever witnessed, and
that—the death of your Child, God's Eternal Son. If Mary had loved
less, if she had been less perfect, she surely would not—or could
not—have been a witness to the death of her Son. She was supreme,
unparalleled in her love and heroism ; and all her fortitude and love
sprang from her very sinlessness; yet she, who throughout the whole
of her life had never sinned, who had never been defiled by the least
stain of sin, was called upon to suffer for it in sacrificing her Son
and in witnessing His Passion and Death. " The life of love is a
life of sorrow." " But He knoweth my way, and has tried me
as gold that passeth through fire " (Job xxiii. 10).
After
Our Blessed Lord had prayed to His Heavenly Father to pardon His
murderers and promised Paradise to the repentant thief, He spoke to
His Mother. He looked down with His Eyes full of tears at the sad
face of His gentle Mother, whose heart was broken with grief. "
Woman," He said, " behold thy Son." And looking down
on the disciple whom He loved, He added: "Behold, thy Mother."
Jesus Christ desired that Mary should co-operate with Him in the
great work of man's Redemption ; and His dying gift to earth was the
gift of His own Mother. Mary is the Mother of God because we are
sinners, and because we need her so much. That is our claim to her.
As she stood at the foot of the Cross during those hours of agony and
woe, she realized, by reason of her own sinlessness, the awful debt
which the Son of God owed to His Eternal Father when He took upon
Himself the sins of the world. His Life was pledged ; His Sacrifice
was offered, that the Justice of God might be appeased ; that full
and perfect satisfaction might be made to the outraged Majesty of God
for the sins of men ; that the spotless holiness of God might be made
manifest to the world to the end of time. Our Blessed Lady,
participating in the Sorrows of her Son, in the ignominy and
desolation of His Death, participated also in His love for men ; and
closely allied with Him in the Redemption of mankind, took the sinful
children of earth to her loving heart and became our Mother. She gave
up her Son and took us. That was her sacrifice.
Mother
of God, He broke thy heart That it might wider be ; That in the
vastness of its love There might be room for me.
On
Calvary's purpled hill Mary opened her immaculate heart to the
sin-afflicted children of Eve ; and she shows us the, way, in the
misery of our sinfulness, to the boundless, depthless, fathomless
love of God. " What more could I do for you that I have not done
? What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard that I have
not done to it ? " (Isaias v. 4).
As
Our Blessed Lord's sufferings be came more and more intensified by
the approach of death. Mary suffered more and more. Every wound, mark
and bruise in her Son's Body was repeated in her soul. She entered
into every phase of His agony and was immersed in grief. " To
what shall I compare thee, or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter
of Jerusalem ? To what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O
virgin daughter of Sion ? For great as the sea is thy destruction ;
who shall heal thee ? " (Lamentations ii. 13). She was
inconsolable; none could heal her, for her Son was dying in agony
between two thieves, scorned and derided with the shadow of death
upon Him—repudiated by His own nation, disowned even by common
humanity. " I am a worm, and no man ; the reproach of men, and
the outcast of the people" (Psalm xxi. 7). Our Lady heard] the
blasphemous language of the executioners as they lingered round
Calvary, the scornful remarks of the Pharisees as some rode up on
horseback to witness His torture ; saw the men, not far distant from
her, casting lots for His garments ; witnessed the disdain and
contempt of the Roman soldiers as they gazed upon the Nazarene ; and
her sorrow knew no bounds. " Save me, 0 God, for the waters are
come in even to my soul" (Psalm Ixviii. 2).
After
He had uttered His third word, our dear Lord was silent for some time
; and darkness, strange and intense, fell upon the earth, typical of
the darkness which had come upon His Soul. His Soul was a sea of
agony, an ocean of pain ; for in the work of man's Redemption not
only must He surrender His Body to be crucified, but His Soul must be
crucified also. Nothing was spared Him; He Himself willed that
nothing should be spared Him. He was Sin's Captive; Sin's Atonement;
and in the height of His agony He uttered that heart-rending cry : "
My God ! My God ! why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " " And there
stood by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother." His Mother—the
Mother of His Mind and Soul—who understood, as only she could, the
true character of the sufferings which God was inflicting upon His
Son, and hers, as atonement for the sins of men.
A
plaintive cry came from the lips of the dying Christ. " I
thirst." " I thirst for men's love." Down through the
centuries He looked and He saw every one of us with our faults and
failings, our sins and iniquities which He has forgiven so often and
so generously in the Sacrament of Penance ; saw us with our
ingratitude and indifference ; and He loved us in spite of this,
loved us in spite of our selves, though by the very intensity of His
Love He was breaking His own Heart. " Whom hast thou reproached,
and whom hast thou blasphemed; and against whom hast thou exalted thy
voice and lifted up thine eyes on high ? Against the Holy One of
Israel" (Isaias xxxvii. 23). " Oh ! the sorrow of
sinfulness, the gate to pain," to cause the death of Jesus
Christ, the " most beautiful among the children of men."
Has
the Crucifixion of the Son of God any special claims upon us as
Catholics in our daily lives, privileged as none others are to know
Him in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in the tender love of His
Sacraments ? Does He not plead with each one of us for a deeper
recognition of His love, a more fervent, generous response to it ?
Does He not ask that there shall be a daily sacrifice in our lives of
self—of our will, our affections, for Him ; that there shall be an
annihilation of our pride, cowardice and insincerity ; that we should
die to self, and live with Him ? Does He not ask for a more intense,
more enduring hatred of Sin ; not only of grave, serious sin, but
also of those lesser ones which we call " venial" ; which,
perhaps, we commit with so much ease and facility ; to the habits of
which we have, perchance, so long accustomed ourselves ; which we
perceive so casually and excuse so lightly ?
Our
dear Lord uttered His two last words very soon after one another. The
hour of His Death had now come ; there was nothing more that He could
suffer for men. Love—even the love of the Son of God—could go no
further. " In His love and in His mercy He redeemed us " ;
and His Mother had given Him up for the Redemption of the human race.
Our Saviour looked down upon her for the last time ; and shortly
afterwards He cried : “ It is finished." “And bowing down
His Head, He gave up the ghost."
Nature
became convulsed at the death of her Creator. Men fled from the
terror and panic of the earthquake, the sight of graves opening and
giving up their dead; unnatural darkness covered the earth; fear took
possession of the crowd : " In deed, this was the Son of God."
And at the Foot of the Cross, keeping her vigil of sorrow, her heart
broken with grief, " there stood by the Cross of Jesus, His
Mother."
From A crown of tribulation: being meditations on the Seven Sorrows of our Blessed Lady Mary (1920)
