“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother’. And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” (John 19: 25-27)
In one of the most moving moments of the Passion, Jesus hands His mother over to the care of St. John and entrusts the beloved disciple to the maternal love of Mary.
In this entrustment, we have all become children of the Mother of God.
Only twice in John’s Gospel does Jesus directly address his mother, once at the wedding at Cana and in the above scene at the foot of the Cross. In both instances, he calls her “Woman”.
This may sound disrespectful to our modern ears. Do not go home and call your mother “Woman”.
Clearly, the Lord is making a theological point here. Mary is not simply a woman, but rather, she is THE woman, the new Eve whose obedient fiat cancels out the first Eve’s sinful disobedience.
She is the woman of the apocalypse, appearing in the heavens, clothed with the sun, crowned with stars.
She is the woman, promised by God in his dialogue with the serpent in Genesis Chapter 3, whose son will crush the head of the serpent and destroy the power of evil and death.
The early Church Fathers called this mysterious prophecy the protoevangelium or the “pre-Gospel,” as God already promises ultimate salvation in Jesus Christ, even as the immediate repercussions of the Original Sin begin to ripple out.
The perfection of God’s plan for us
In Mary, we see the perfection of God’s plan for us. She is the Lord’s masterpiece, sinless from the first moment of her conception, chosen by God to bring His Son into the world, giving Jesus His humanity, deeply sharing in the mystery of our salvation.
In a masterpiece, we perceive the genius of the artist. Think of the Pieta by Michelangelo or the Last Supper by Da Vinci.
These classic works of genius reveal the mind, heart, and imagination of the artist whose efforts bring a creation of beauty, truth, and goodness into being.
Just so, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, we perceive God’s original intention for all of us — holiness, freedom from sin and death, complete obedience to God, humility and joy, union with the Lord for all eternity.
Bloodied, scourged, crowned with thorns, stripped of everything including His garments, Jesus gives His mother to us in the last moments of His earthly life. How consoling to know that Mary is truly our spiritual mother.
In our status as adopted children of the Father, she loves us as her own, praying for us, interceding for us with her Son, encouraging us to follow her example of discipleship and service.
A devotion to Mary
Every Catholic needs a robust Marian devotion to live an integral spirituality.
Observing First Saturdays, praying the Rosary daily, celebrating the many Marian feasts throughout the year, making a personal consecration to the Blessed Mother, and imitating her virtues of faith, humility, and trust are concrete ways which bring us into a deep and loving relationship with the Mother of God, making all of us better Christians and true servants of the Gospel.
Recently, I received a copy of the Family Rosary Book, which my family regularly used, as we prayed the Rosary every night after supper.
Seeing it for the first time in decades brought back a flood of memories. (A big surprise for me was the fact that the book was published in Madison in 1951 and had a cover letter from Bishop O’Connor on the first page.)
We would place the book, with a full-page artistic depiction of each Mystery, on the coffee table, taking turns leading the decades and turning the pages.
Those particular pictures are emblazoned in my mind, because I saw them every single day of my childhood. When I think of those events in the life of Jesus and Mary, I see those pictures.
The Rosary is a profound way to ponder the Gospel and to learn the essentials of our Christian faith.
In the Scriptures, so often we read that, after some profound moment shared with our Lord, Mary took the time to ponder, treasure, and store those experiences.
When we pray the Rosary, we are asking Mary to open the treasure house of her heart and share with us her living memories of Jesus.
What hope and peace we can draw by developing and deepening our filial relationship with our heavenly Mother.
She teaches us the Gospel, exemplifies the Christian virtues, models discipleship and leads us to Jesus.
Like any good mother, she cares for us, loves us, worries for our salvation, and prays for us, especially when we go astray.
As we continue to meditate on Jesus’ last words from the Cross, personally I find this entrustment of us to His holy Mother profoundly moving and generous.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!