John
19:25-27
"But his mother, and his mother's sister, and Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary from Magdala, stood near the Cross of Jesus. So Jesus saw his mother, and he saw the disciple whom he loved standing by, and he said to his mother: `Woman! See! Your son.' Then he said to the disciple: `See! Your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home."
Food for thought!
The feast we celebrate today, Our Lady of Sorrows, reminds us that at the end of his life, Jesus was not alone. At his Cross there were these four brave women who loved him. It was always a dangerous thing to be an associate of a man whom the Roman government believed to be so dangerous that he deserved a Cross. It is always a dangerous thing to demonstrate one's love for someone whom the orthodox regard as a heretic. The presence of these women at the Cross was not due to the fact that they were so unimportant that no one would notice them; their presence was due to the fact that perfect love casts out fear. Is this not the reason that of men, there remained ONLY the disciple "whom he loved"? Indeed, only those who love us can stand by us until the end! And only those who stand by us in all circumstances do love us. A friend in need is a friend indeed!
The women at the cross of Jesus are a strange company. Of one, Mary the wife of Clopas, we know nothing; but we know something of the other three.
(i) There was Mary, Jesus' mother. Maybe she could not understand, but she could love. Her presence there was the most natural thing in the world for a mother. Jesus might be a criminal in the eyes of the law, but he was her beloved son. The same with us: your loved one may be many bad things to many people but s/he is your honey.
(ii) There was Jesus' mother's sister. In the gospel according to John she is not named, but a study of the parallel passages (Mk.15:40; Matt.27:56) makes it quite clear that she was Salome, the mother of James and John. The strange thing about her is that she had received from Jesus a reprimand or reproach when she came to Jesus to ask him to give her sons the chief place in his kingdom (Matt.20:20), and Jesus had taught her how wrong such ambitious thoughts were. Despite all this reproach, she is now at the Cross. Her presence says much for her and for Jesus. It shows that she had the humility to accept rebuke from Jesus and continue to love him with undiminished devotion.
"But his mother, and his mother's sister, and Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary from Magdala, stood near the Cross of Jesus. So Jesus saw his mother, and he saw the disciple whom he loved standing by, and he said to his mother: `Woman! See! Your son.' Then he said to the disciple: `See! Your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home."
Food for thought!
The feast we celebrate today, Our Lady of Sorrows, reminds us that at the end of his life, Jesus was not alone. At his Cross there were these four brave women who loved him. It was always a dangerous thing to be an associate of a man whom the Roman government believed to be so dangerous that he deserved a Cross. It is always a dangerous thing to demonstrate one's love for someone whom the orthodox regard as a heretic. The presence of these women at the Cross was not due to the fact that they were so unimportant that no one would notice them; their presence was due to the fact that perfect love casts out fear. Is this not the reason that of men, there remained ONLY the disciple "whom he loved"? Indeed, only those who love us can stand by us until the end! And only those who stand by us in all circumstances do love us. A friend in need is a friend indeed!
The women at the cross of Jesus are a strange company. Of one, Mary the wife of Clopas, we know nothing; but we know something of the other three.
(i) There was Mary, Jesus' mother. Maybe she could not understand, but she could love. Her presence there was the most natural thing in the world for a mother. Jesus might be a criminal in the eyes of the law, but he was her beloved son. The same with us: your loved one may be many bad things to many people but s/he is your honey.
(ii) There was Jesus' mother's sister. In the gospel according to John she is not named, but a study of the parallel passages (Mk.15:40; Matt.27:56) makes it quite clear that she was Salome, the mother of James and John. The strange thing about her is that she had received from Jesus a reprimand or reproach when she came to Jesus to ask him to give her sons the chief place in his kingdom (Matt.20:20), and Jesus had taught her how wrong such ambitious thoughts were. Despite all this reproach, she is now at the Cross. Her presence says much for her and for Jesus. It shows that she had the humility to accept rebuke from Jesus and continue to love him with undiminished devotion.
(iii)
There was Mary from Magdala. All we know about her is that out of her Jesus
cast seven devils (Mk.16:9; Lk.8:2). She could never forget what Jesus had done
for her. His love had rescued her, and her love was such that it could never
die. Mary knew Psalm 78 that says "Do not forget the works of
the Lord!" You and I have
seen God work miracles in our own lives, yet we so easily forget them. Jesus
simply says, “Don’t you remember at all?” (Matthew 16: 9)
As
Cherie Hill reminds us : Let us not forget, whatever our storm is, whatever our
circumstances might be, there is no situation that is too difficult for God. We
don’t need a “lifeboat”— We have a Savior that walks on water! It has been
said, “You should never forget in the darkness what has been revealed to you in
the light.” It is easy to have faith when God has taken you to the mountaintop,
but what about when God has allowed you to wander into the valley? Will your
faith be steadfast? Will you look to God when your life has been thrown into
the fire?
There is something infinitely moving in the fact that Jesus in the agony of the Cross, when the salvation of the world hung in the balance, thought of the loneliness of his mother in the days ahead. Even in the moment of his cosmic battle, Jesus' attention was on others; even on the Cross, Jesus was thinking more of the sorrows of others than of his own.
For most of us, when we are suffering or going thru hard times we want the whole world to stop and attend to us; we need all the attention there is; this was not so for Jesus. In his suffering he still thought of others.
No comments:
Post a Comment