MARY'S SWORD

 

Jesus, on the way to His crucifixion, and in the midst of great pain, encounters His Mother. Mary must have remembered the words spoken to her: "and you yourself a sword will pierce."  Jen Norton's powerful painting to the left says it all- with that sword piercing her heart.

Jesus is about to fulfill His earthly mission by sacrificing Himself for the all of humankind, and that pain reflects the greatest love and hope at the same time.  

What is Mary thinking?  Does she know she will soon see Him alive? Even if she has a clue, He is in agony and her pain must be terrible beyond belief. She knows she cannot stop this procession to the top of Calvary.

The disciples fled, she did not flee. She stayed there, with the courage of a mother, with the fidelity of a mother, with the goodness of a mother, and with her great faith.  Face to face, Jesus and His Mother meet. Jesus bent under the weight of the cross,  is covered in blood, sweat, and spit. The angry crowd is screaming insults.  Mary, experiencing every mother's worst nightmare feels the sword pierce her soul. Moving with fiercely protective love, she offers her Son what she can: the comfort of her presence. At this point it is all she has to give Him!

As through all of the Gospels, after His Mother opened for Him His public life, at the Wedding feast at Cana, the gospel here places no words in her mouth.  She is struck  dumb- numb.  But their eyes meet-  we all know from experience that this exchange can be stronger- more powerful- than words.

Which bring us to the origin of the Stations of the Cross. The devotional exercise of visiting and praying in front of each of the 14 stations and meditating on the Passion of Christ stems from the practice of early Christian pilgrims who visited the scenes of the events in Jerusalem and walked the traditional route from the supposed location of Pilate’s house to Calvary.

Tradition holds that the mother of Jesus, set up stone markers at her home outside Jerusalem to prayerfully retrace the steps of her son’s Passion, but the origin of the devotion in its present form is not clear.

The number of stations originally observed in Jerusalem was considerably smaller than 14. In the early 16th century, Ways of the Cross were established in Europe, and the tradition of 14 stations probably derived from the best known of them, that at Leuven in 1505.

The Franciscans long popularized the practice, and by the 18th century we find 14 stations in Jerusalem. 

For all of us, the meeting of Jesus and His mother on the way to Calvary is a powerful and ever timely event. Jesus gave up his mother so that each of us might have a mother who is always there for us- no matter the suffering.

IMAGES:

           Rt. -   Ghislaine Howard - British 

                       (b. 1953)

           Left -  Lamidi Fakeye -  Nigerian  

                     ( d. 2009)

           Rt.  -   Virgil Cantini-  USA