Mary follows Jesus to Calvary, Mary: Day 243

Mary follows Jesus to Calvary

Would Jesus have tried to keep his mother from following him to Calvary because of his desire to protect her? St. Alphonsus and others imagine what might have happened.

When Margaret, the daughter of St. Thomas More, met her father on the way to his execution as a martyr, she could only exclaim, “Father! Father!” and fall fainting at his feet. But Mary, at the sight of her Son on his way to Cal- vary, does not faint. No—for it’s not fitting, as Fr. Francisco Suarez remarks, that this mother should lose the use of her reason. Nor does she die, for God has reserved her for a greater grief.

But even though she doesn’t die, her sorrow is enough to have caused her a thousand deaths. The mother wants to embrace her Son, as St. Anselm says, but the guards thrust her aside with insults, and urge the suffering Lord forward. So Mary follows him. Holy Virgin, where are you going? To Calvary. And can you trust yourself to behold the One who is your life hanging on a cross?

St. Lawrence Justinian imagines Jesus saying: “Stop, my Mother! Where are you going? Where do you want to come? If you come where I go, you’ll be tortured with my sufferings, and I with yours.” But even though the sight of her dying Jesus is to cost her such bitter sorrow, the loving Mary will not leave him. The Son moves forward, and the mother follows, to be crucified with her Son as well.

“We pity even wild beasts,” as St. John Chrysostom writes; if we were to see a lioness following her cub to death, the sight would move us to compassion. Shouldn’t we, then, be moved to compassion as well to see Mary follow her immaculate Lamb to death? We must pity her, then, and also accompany her and her Son, by bearing with patience the cross that our Lord has given us. —St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
What does it mean to “accompany” Mary and Jesus to Calvary? What cross has the Lord given me, which I must bear with patience?

CLOSING PRAYER
From a prayer of Pope St. John Paul II: Mary, humble servant of God Most High . . . you were the servant of redemption, standing courageously at the foot of the Cross, close to the Suffering Servant and Lamb, who was sacrificing himself for love of us.

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