Mother's Day

Starting on Good Friday and culminating on Mother's Day, I have been pondering mothers and motherhood.

To me was never given the gift of having a child - and I would likely have been a lousy mother! - but when I see mums with their babies, toddlers, school-aged kids, teenagers, college-bound technical-but-not-practical adults, newly marrieds, parents-themselves ... I am filled with awe and admiration.

One mother in particular has consumed a lot of my thought: Mary, the mother of Jesus.

We know the Good Friday story, as told in the Gospel of John chapter 19 and verses 25, 26 and 27:

25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. 

26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and [John] the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said unto his mother, Woman, behold your son! 

27 Then said he to the disciple, Behold your mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

Somehow, on this particular Good Friday, I saw the story slightly differently. Please indulge me as I recount what I saw and thought:

When Jesus spotted the group of women standing near His cross, along with His dearly loved disciple, not leaving despite the raw unmitigated horror of the scene, His eyes locked on His mother's.

Fully God, He had already talked to His Father: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He felt bereft of the presence of the one from whom He had never been separated.

Fully human, He saw the person who had never abandoned Him despite all the suffering she had experienced the last 33 years due to the simple fact of being His mother - the raised eyebrows and the whispering behind backs, the insinuations and open slights. 

He remembered when she and His dearly loved stepfather, Joseph, made the sacrificial journey with Him to the Temple at the age of His bar mitzvah. The feeling when the Word made flesh touched the ancient Words on scroll, when He read and discussed with the leaders of the Temple the words given by His own inspiration so many centuries ago ...

How He had lost track of time! So when His mother appeared at the temple, distraught, asking Him how He could have done this to His father and her, He had responded in the inimitable way of an excited 12 year old, "Why were you looking for me? Don't you know that I have to be in my Father's house?"

However, He went back to Nazareth with them and continued behaving as a good son does to his parents; He knew that they had not yet started to comprehend what He had been saying when they found Him in the Temple.

But Mary, as she had during other times of His life, tucked all of the details of the event in her heart. (This story is found in Luke's gospel, chapter 12 and verses 41-51.)

He thought of His mother to whom, when she asked Him to help out a friend to spare him embarrassment at his wedding when the wine ran out, He responded, "Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come."

He thought of the time she and His brothers came to see Him:

31 Then his mother and his brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to him and called him.

32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Behold, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.”

33 Answering them, he said, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

34 Looking about at those who were sitting around him, he said, “Behold my mother and my brothers!

35 “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” (Gospel of Mark, chapter 3)

And now, hanging on the cross in such exquisite pain that He could hardly see, yet He saw her looking at Him with eyes of sorrow, eyes of love; and He knew if she could bear even this for Him, she gladly would.

The threads of all the previous incidents throughout His life were finally woven together in this moment.

His hour had come.

And His mother was with Him.

"Woman," He groaned, "Behold your son ..."


Fully human, He was at that moment her child, crying out, in effect, "Mother, look what has become of me! Oh, Mum ..."

And the sword that the ancient Simeon had foretold would pierce her soul hit its target.

He saw her crushing distress and acknowledged that He would not be able to care for her as was the custom. So He then spoke to John, committing His beloved mother to the protection of His closest friend: "Behold your mother!" John understood; and from that time forth she lived under his roof.

To see a mother watch as her child dies is the one aspect of motherhood I cannot begin to imagine.

And so on this Mother's Day - a couple of days late - I remember mothers who have lost a child far, far too soon, be it in utero, in childbirth, as a newborn or infant or teenager. Or as an adult, around the age of 33.

Mothers who know that part of their heart has been extinguished along with their child's breath, never to be restored or replaced.

Who have felt that same sword.

Pietà (Michelangelo)