Mary's pain shares in ours

READING: John 18:1-19:42 -- Christ's Passion; Mary at the foot of the Cross.

"Seeing his mother there with the disciple whom he loved, Jesus said to his mother, 'Woman, there is your son.' In turn, he said to the disciple, 'There is your mother.' From that hour onward, the disciple took her into his home."

REFLECTION: Since there is no formal feast day for Mary during April, it is fitting that we ponder Mary at the foot of the cross. The image of the Mater Dolorosa, the Mother of Sorrows, perhaps captures the agony of the final encounter between a mother and her dying son. "Yet, a sword shall pierce through they own soul also" (Simeon's prophecy, Lk 2:35).

The combination of the mother at the cross and the mother with her groaning, sorrowing, and grieving soul pierced by a sword produced the powerful verses of the poem, Stabat Mater Dolorosa which was eventually set to music.

Michelangelo's Pieta is perhaps the best known attempt to capture the breadth and depth of Mary's grief as she held the bleeding and broken body of her crucified son. On her face, sorrow and serenity are joined in her most tragic hour. She laments the death of Jesus because he was her son, yet welcomes it because he was her Savior and the Savior of the world. In the words of one of the foremost 20th century Catholic theologians, Hans Urs von Balthasar, "She suffers along with her son, and in her spirit, she experiences His death."

RELEVANCE: Mother Maria Skobtsova was born into an aristocratic Russian family. She left home when the Bolsheviks overthrew the monarchy in 1917. She moved to a small village on the Black Sea, became the mayor, married and had two children.

The tragedy of losing one of her children led Maria to a profound conversion. She began ministering to refugees in prisons, mental asylums and slums.

The final act of her life was to talk her way into a sports stadium in 1942 where thousands of Jews had been rounded up. Aided by garbage collectors, she smuggled out Jewish children in garbage bags and saved their lives. The Gestapo arrested her. On Good Friday, 1945, Maria was sent to the gas chamber.

She left these words for us, "At the Last Judgment, I shall not be asked whether I was successful at my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead, I shall be asked, 'Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners.' This is all I shall be asked" (The Journal of Fellowship in Prayer, Feb. 2001).

RESPONSE: Visit someone who is ill; volunteer your time at a homeless shelter; take a stand against an unjust social issue in your community.

(Vanden Busch, a Green Bay writer, educator and speaker, is a columnist for Catechist magazine. His columns have been compiled into a book, available through Notre Dame Middle School, De Pere.)