Ah, True Mother! Loving Mother!
For Not Even The Terror Of Death
Could Separate Thee From Thy Beloved Son.
But, Oh God, What A Spectacle Of Sorrow,…
For Not Even The Terror Of Death
Could Separate Thee From Thy Beloved Son.
But, Oh God, What A Spectacle Of Sorrow,…
Therefore, at the same time that the Son was sacrificing his body, the mother, as St. Bernardino says, was sacrificing her soul.
AND now we have to admire a new sort of
martyrdom, a mother condemned to see an innocent son, whom she loved
with all the affection of her heart, put to death before her eyes, by
the most barbarous tortures. There stood by the cross of Jesus his
mother: “Stabat autem juxta crucem mater ejus.”
There is nothing more to be said, says St.
John, of the martyrdom of Mary: behold her at the foot of the cross,
looking on her dying Son, and then see if there is grief like her grief.
Let us stop then also today on Calvary, to consider this fifth sword
that pierced the heart of Mary, namely, the death of Jesus.
As soon as our afflicted Redeemer had
ascended the hill of Calvary, the executioners stripped him of his
garments, and piercing his sacred hands and feet with nails, not sharp,
but blunt: “Non acutis, sed obtusis” as St. Bernard says, and to torture
him more, they fastened him to the cross.
When they had crucified him, they planted
the cross, and thus left him to die. The executioners abandon him, but
Mary does not abandon him. She then draws nearer to the cross, in order
to assist at his death.
“I did not leave him,” thus the blessed
Virgin revealed to St. Bridget, “and stood nearer to his cross.” But
what did it avail, oh Lady, says St. Bonaventure, to go to Calvary to
witness there the death of this Son? Shame should have prevented thee,
for his disgrace was also thine, because thou wast his mother; or, at
least, the horror of such a crime as that of seeing a God crucified by
his own creatures, should have prevented thee.
But the saint himself answers: “Thy heart
did not consider the horror, but the suffering: Non considerabat cor
tuum horrorem, sed dolorem.” Ah, thy heart did not then care for its own
sorrow, but for the suffering and death of thy dear Son; and therefore
thou thyself didst wish to be near him, at least to compassionate him.
Ah, true mother! says William the Abbot,
loving mother! for not even the terror of death could separate thee from
thy beloved Son. But, oh God, what a spectacle of sorrow, to see this
Son then in agony upon the cross, and under the cross this mother in
agony, who was suffering all the pain that her Son was suffering!
Behold the words in which Mary revealed to
St. Bridget the pitiable state of her dying Son, as she saw him on the
cross: “My dear Jesus was on the cross in grief and in agony; his eyes
were sunken, half closed, and lifeless; the lips hanging, and the mouth
open; the cheeks hollow, and attached to the teeth; the face lengthened,
the nose sharp, the countenance sad; the head had fallen upon his
breast, the hair black with blood, the stomach collapsed, the arms and
legs stiff, and the whole body covered with wounds and blood.”
Mary also suffered all these pains of
Jesus. Every torture inflicted on the body of Jesus, says St. Jerome,
was a wound in the heart of the mother. Any one of us who should then
have been on Mount Calvary, would have seen two altars, says St. John
Chrysostom, on which two great sacrifices were consummating, one in the
body of Jesus, the other in the heart of Mary.
But rather would I see there, with St.
Bonaventure, one altar only, namely, the cross alone of the Son, on
which, with the victim, this divine Lamb, the mother also was
sacrificed. Therefore the saint interrogates her in these words: Oh
Lady, where art thou? Near the cross? Nay, on the cross, thou art
crucified with thy Son.
St. Augustine also says the same thing: The
cross and nails of the Son were also the cross and nails of the mother;
Christ being crucified, the mother was also crucified.
Yes, because, as St. Bernard says, love
inflicted on the heart of Mary the same suffering that the nails caused
in the body of Jesus. Therefore, at the same time that the Son was
sacrificing his body, the mother, as St. Bernardino says, was
sacrificing her soul.
Mothers fly from the presence of their
dying children; but if a mother is ever obliged to witness the death of a
child, she procures for him all possible relief; she arranges the bed,
that his posture may be more easy; she administers refreshments to him;
and thus the poor mother relieves her own sorrows.
Ah, mother, the most afflicted of all
mothers! oh Mary, it was decreed that thou shouldst be present at the
death of Jesus, but it was not given to thee to afford him any relief.
Mary heard her Son say: I thirst: “Sitio;” but it was not permitted her
to give him a little water to quench his great thirst.
She could only say to him, as St. Vincent
Ferrer remarks; My Son, I have only the water of my tears: “Fili, non
habeo nisi aquara lacrymarum.”
She saw that her Son, suspended by three
nails to that bed of sorrow, could find no rest. She wished to clasp him
to her heart, that she might give him relief, or at least that he might
expire in her arms, but she could not.
She only saw that poor Son in a sea of
sorrow, seeking one who could console him as he had predicted by the
mouth of the prophet: “I have trodden the winepress alone; I looked
about and there was none to help; I sought and there was none to give
aid.”
But who was there among men to console him,
if all were his enemies? Even on the cross they cursed and mocked him
on every side: “And they that passed by blasphemed him, wagging their
heads.”
Some said to him: “If thou be the Son of
God, come down from the cross.” Some exclaimed: “He saved others,
himself he cannot save.” Others said: “If he be the King of Israel, let
him come down from the cross.”
The blessed Virgin herself said to St.
Bridget: “I heard some call my Son a thief; I heard others call him an
impostor; others said that no one deserved death more than he; and every
word was to me a new sword of sorrow.”
But what increased most the sorrows which
Mary suffered through compassion for her Son, was to hear him complain
on the cross that even the eternal Father had abandoned him: “My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Words which, as the divine mother herself
said to St. Bridget, could never depart from her mind during her whole
life. Thus the afflicted mother saw her Jesus suffering on every side;
she desired to comfort him, but could not. And what caused her the
greatest sorrow was to see that, by her presence and her grief, she
increased the sufferings of her Son.
The sorrow itself, says St. Bernard, that
filled the heart of Mary, increased the bitterness of sorrow in the
heart of Jesus. St. Bernard also says, that Jesus on the cross suffered
more from compassion for his mother than from his own pains: he thus
speaks in the name of the Virgin: I stood and looked upon him, and he
looked upon me; and he suffered more for me than for himself.
The same saint also, speaking of Mary beside her dying Son, says that
she lived dying without being able to die: Near the cross stood his
mother, speechless; living she died, dying she lived; neither could she
die, because she was dead, being yet alive.”
Passino writes that Jesus Christ himself,
speaking one day to the blessed Baptista Varana, of Camerino, said to
her that he was so afflicted on the cross at the sight of his mother in
such anguish at his feet, that compassion for his mother caused him to
die without consolation. So that the blessed Baptista, being enlightened
to know this suffering of Jesus, exclaimed: “Oh my Lord, tell me no
more of this thy sorrow, for I can not bear it.”
Men were astonished, says Simon of Cassia,
when they saw this mother then keep silence, without uttering a
complaint in this great suffering. But if the lips of Mary were silent,
her heart was not so; for she did not cease offering to divine justice
the life of her Son for our salvation.
Therefore we know that by the merits of her
dolors she co-operated with Christ in bringing us forth to the life of
grace, and therefore we are children of her sorrows: Christ, says
Lanspergius, wished her whom he had appointed for our mother to
co-operate with him in our redemption; for she herself at the foot of
the cross was to bring us forth as her children!
And if ever any consolation entered into
that sea of bitterness, namely, the heart of Mary, it was this only one;
namely, the knowledge that by means of her sorrows, she was bringing us
to eternal salvation; as Jesus himself revealed to St. Bridget: “My
mother Mary, on account of her compassion and charity, was made mother
of all in heaven and on earth.”
And, indeed, these were the last words with
which Jesus took leave of her before his death; this was his last
remembrance, leaving us to her for her children in the person of John,
when he said to her: Woman, behold thy Son: “And from that time Mary
began to perform for us this office of a good mother; for, as St. Peter
Dainian declares, the penitent thief, through the prayers of Mary, was
then converted and saved: Therefore the good thief repented, because the
blessed Virgin, standing between the cross of her Son and that of the
thief, prayed her Son for him; thus rewarding, by this favor, his former
service.
For as other authors also relate, this
thief, in the journey to Egypt with the infant Jesus, showed them
kindness; and this same office the blessed Virgin has ever continued,
and still continues to perform.
EXAMPLE:
A young man in Perugia once
promised the devil that if he would help him to commit a sinful act
which he desired to do, he would give him his soul; and he gave him a
writing to that effect, signed with his blood. The evil deed was
committed, and the devil demanded the performance of the promise.
He led the young man to a well, and
threatened to take him body and soul to hell if he would not cast
himself into it. The wretched youth, thinking that it would be
impossible for him to escape from his enemy, climbed the well-side in
order to cast himself into it, but terrified at the thought of death, he
said to the devil that he had not the courage to throw himself in, and
that, if he wished to see him dead, he himself should thrust him in. The
young man wore about his neck the scapular of the sorrowing Mary; and
the devil said to him: Take off that scapular, and I will thrust you in.
But the youth, seeing the protection which
the divine mother still gave him through that scapular, refused to take
it off, and after a great deal of altercation, the devil departed in
confusion. The sinner repented, and grateful to his sorrowful mother,
went to thank her, and presented a picture of this case, as an offering,
at her altar in the new church of Santa Maria, in Perugia.
PRAYER:
Ah, mother, the most afflicted of
all mothers, thy Son, then, is dead; thy Son so amiable, and who loved
thee so much! Weep, for thou hast reason to weep. Who can ever console
thee? Nothing can console thee but the thought that Jesus, by his death,
hath conquered hell, hath opened paradise which was closed to men, and
hath gained so many souls. From that throne of the cross he was to reign
over so many hearts, which, conquered by his love, would serve him with
love.
Do not disdain, oh my mother, to keep me
near to weep with thee, for I have more reason than thou to weep for the
offences that I have committed against thy Son. Ah, mother of mercy, I
hope for pardon and my eternal salvation, first through the death of my
Redeemer, and then through the merits of thy dolors. Amen.
“Stories
of Mary” are taken from the Glories of Mary, translated from the Italian
of St. Alphonsus Liguori; New Revised Edition, P.J. Kennedy & Sons.
Copyright 1888 by P.J. Kennedy
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