CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PASSION Saint Alphonsus de Liguori - CHAPTER V ON THE SEVEN WORDS PRONOUNCED BY JESUS CHRIST ON THE CROSS
We read in the Gospel of Saint Mark that there were several holy women on Calvary who looked at Jesus crucified, but from afar (Mk 15 , 40); we must therefore believe that the Mother of the Savior was with them. However, according to Saint John, the Blessed Virgin was, not far away, but near the cross with Mary, wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene (Jn 19:25). Euthymius seeks to remove the difficulty by saying that the Blessed Virgin, seeing that her divine Son would soon expire, approached the cross. To get closer to her beloved Son, she overcame the fear inspired by the soldiers, and patiently endured all the insults she had to suffer from the men who guarded the condemned and who brutally pushed her back. The learned author of A Life of Jesus Christ says the same thing: “There were friends there who observed him from afar; but the Blessed Virgin, Saint Mary Magdalene and another Mary stood near the cross with Saint John. Jesus, seeing his Mother and his dear disciple near him, addressed them these words... "The painful death of his Son cannot shake this incomparable Mother, following the reflection of Abbot Gueric: "Such is this Mother who even in the terror of death does not desert his Son. » Mothers flee when their children die; seeing them expire without being able to help them is a spectacle that their tenderness does not allow them to witness; Mary, on the contrary, the closer the death of her Son approached, the closer she approached the cross.
This afflicted Mother was therefore standing near the cross and, in the same way Jesus offered the sacrifice of her life, she offered the sacrifice of her pain for the salvation of men, participating with the most perfect resignation in all the sorrows and all the opprobriums. that her divine Son suffered while dying. One author observes that we do not honor the constancy of Mary when we represent her fainting at the foot of the cross; she was the strong woman, who did not weaken and did not cry, as Saint Ambrose remarks.
The pain that the Blessed Virgin experienced in the passion of her Son surpassed anything that a human heart can suffer; and it was not a sterile pain, like those of ordinary mothers at the sight of a suffering child, but it was a pain which produced great fruits; for, by the merits of her sufferings and by her charity, following the thought of Saint Augustine, just as Mary is the natural Mother of Jesus Christ, our Head, she then became the spiritual Mother of the faithful, who are the members of Jesus Christ, by cooperating with his charity in giving birth to them and making them children of the Church.
Saint Bernard says that, on Calvary, these two great Martyrs, Jesus and Mary, suffered in silence: the excess of pain which oppressed them deprived them of the ability to speak. The Mother looked at her Son dying on the cross, the Son looked at his Mother dying at the foot of the cross and dying of compassion for the pains he endured.
Mary and John were therefore closer to the cross than the women's saints who accompanied them, so that, in the midst of the tumult, they could more easily hear the voice and distinguish the looks of the Savior. We read in the Gospel that Jesus saw his Mother and his beloved Disciple (Jn 19:26). But if Mary and John were accompanied by other people, why is it said that Jesus saw his Mother and his Disciple, as if he had not seen the women who followed them? This, replies Saint Peter Chrysologus, is an effect of love; we always see more clearly the people we love the most. Saint Ambrose expresses the same thought. The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to Saint Bridget that Jesus, in order to see his Mother, who was near the cross, had to squeeze his eyelids with effort, in order to free his eyes from the blood which covered them and took away his sight.
Jesus said to his Mother, pointing to Saint John who was next to her: “Woman, here is your son. » But why did he call her Woman rather than Mother? It was, one may answer, because finding himself close to death, he spoke to her while taking leave of her, as if he had said: “Woman, in a little while I will be dead; you will no longer have sons on earth; This is why I leave you John who will serve you and love you like a son. » The Lord gives us to understand by this that Saint Joseph was no more; because, if he had still been alive, he would never have separated him from his holy Spouse.
All antiquity attests that Saint John always remained a virgin, and that it is mainly because of this merit that he had the honor of being given as a son to Mary and of replacing Jesus Christ with his Mother; also, the Holy Church has dedicated in its songs this praise of the beloved Disciple. The Gospel records that after the death of Our Lord, Saint John received Mary into his house, and that he assisted and served her as his own mother all the time that she still lived. Jesus Christ wanted this privileged Disciple to be an eyewitness of his death, so that he could then attest to it more firmly, as he did in his writings (Jn 19:35; 1 Jn 1:1). ). This is why the Savior, when his other disciples abandoned him, gave Saint John the strength to follow him until his death in the midst of so many enemies.
But let us return to the Blessed Virgin, and let us try to discover the more intrinsic reason why Jesus called her Woman, and not Mother. He wanted us to understand by this that Mary is the Woman par excellence, announced in Genesis as having to crush the head of the Serpent (Gen 3:15). No one doubts that this Woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary who, by means of her divine Son, if not this Son himself by means of the one who gave birth to him, was to crush the head of Lucifer. Mary must certainly have been an enemy of the Serpent, since Lucifer was proud, ungrateful and rebellious, while she was always humble, grateful and submissive. It was predicted that she would crush his head; because Mary, by giving birth to the Savior of the world, destroyed Lucifer's pride. The Serpent tried to bite Jesus Christ on the heel, by which we must understand his holy humanity, the closest part of the earth; but the Savior, by his death, had the glory of vanquishing him and depriving him of the empire that sin had given him over the human race.
God further told the Serpent that he would establish endless enmity between his race and that of the Woman. This means that after the fall of man caused by sin, notwithstanding the redemption effected by Jesus Christ, there must have been two families and two posterities in the world: by the race of Satan is designated the family of sinners, who are his children, being imbued with his venom; by the race of Mary is designated the holy family, which includes all the righteous with Jesus Christ, their Head. Mary was therefore destined to be the Mother both of the Head and of his members, who are the faithful; for the Apostle says it expressly: “You are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). The faithful form one body with Jesus Christ, the head not being separated from his members; and these members are all spiritual children of Mary, since they have the same spirit as her own Son, who is Jesus Christ. Thus, on Calvary, Saint John is not referred to by name, he is called the Disciple loved by the Lord, so that we understand that Mary is the Mother of every faithful Christian, who is loved by Jesus Christ, and in whom Jesus Christ lives by his spirit. This is consistent with Origen's thinking: “Jesus said to Mary: 'Here is your son', as if he had said to her: 'Here is Jesus whom you gave birth to'; for he who is perfect, it is no longer he who lives, it is Christ who lives in him. »
Denis the Carthusian says that, in the Passion, Mary's breast was filled with the blood which flowed from the wounds of our Savior, so that she could nourish her children with it. He adds that this divine Mother, by her prayers and by the merits which she acquired mainly by witnessing the death of Jesus Christ, obtained for us the grace to participate in the merits of her passion for the Redeemer. O Mother of sorrows! you know that I deserved hell; I have no other hope of salvation than in sharing in the merits of Jesus Christ; This is the grace that I expect from your intercession, and I beg you to obtain it for me, for the love of this divine Son whom, on Calvary, you saw with your own eyes lower his head and expire. ! O Queen of Martyrs! O Advocate of sinners! help me always, and especially at the hour of my death! I already seem to see the demons crowding around me during my agony, and making all their efforts to throw me into despair at the sight of my sins; ah! when you see my soul thus besieged, do not abandon me, help me with your prayers, so that I may obtain confidence and holy perseverance. As then, perhaps losing speech and even the use of the senses, I will no longer be able to pronounce your holy name nor that of your divine Son, I invoke you from this moment and I say to you: “Jesus and Mary, I recommend my Soul! »