March 30: Jesus Meets the Women (including Mary) on the Way to the Cross. Luke 23:26-31
26 As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. 28 But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
The traditional “Seven Sorrows of Mary” skip from an event when Jesus was age 12 to an incident when Jesus is on the way to the cross on the via dolorosa (the way of sorrows) on Good Friday. My best guess is that Mary was about age 30 at the time of the temple mix-up in Luke 2, still married to Joseph. Now she is about age 50, probably widowed for a decade or more. In the accounts of the week of Jesus’ life leading to his crucifixion, Mary is among “the women” who do not abandon him, even at the cross.
It is this group of women who follow Jesus on the way to the place of crucifixion. While Mary is not mentioned specifically in the Gospel accounts, it is reasonable to see her as part of this group. She understands what is happening, the monstrous injustice that has been done to Jesus by Pilate. As his mother, Mary can empathize deeply with this man she adores, her son. She almost feels the intense pain that he is experiencing from his wounds. Jesus is battered both in his body and emotionally. Mary and the other women react physically, pounding on their chests and wailing inconsolably.
Despite his acute distress and pain, Jesus does not ignore them. Instead, he pauses and speaks to them. His words are not comforting, however. He prophesies of a coming time that will be even worse, when it would be better never to have been a mother. I am reminded that when we say, “Well, things couldn’t get any worse” that things can always get worse.
Watch this reenactment of the scene from the movie, “The Passion of the Christ” https://youtu.be/FQnJ3sifNQQ?si=b7zNuni9CpLnY-st. The filmmaker contrasts young Mary and Jesus as a child in a situation where she sees him fall, runs to him, and comforts him.
In the Catholic tradition of the fourteen “stations of the cross,” this is seen as the fourth station as well as the fourth sorrow of Mary. On the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem today, there is a small Armenian Christian chapel for this station that holds a striking work of statuary to depict Mary’s attempt to comfort Jesus.
But there would be no comfort on that day. Mary could not save her son from what awaited him on Calvary’s hill. So, she offered the love she could and assured him that she would not forsake him.
And she didn’t.
This is the fourth sorrow of Mary.
Journaling Questions
If you are a parent, think of a time when you felt great pain over something that happened to your son or daughter. How were you able to comfort?
There are times we feel helpless in the face of injustice. We empathize with those we love who are suffering through no fault of their own. How do you minister to others in these situations? How do you deal with your own life’s injustices, the times when “it just isn’t fair”?