Mary, mother of Jesus and our loving mother, is the embodiment of all suffering on earth. She looked on in agony, helplessly, at her son’s intense suffering. She drank up to the brim the chalice of his sorrows and pain. When Simon prophesied that a sword would pierce her soul, making a deep wound, she realized instantly the depth and gravity of the prophecy. Whenever she looked at the rosy cheeks and plump body of her loving child Jesus, she might have remembered those piercing words.

Visualize the slow movements of the mob going uphill towards Calvary with Jesus encircled by well-equipped solders and the anxious but sad faces of the women of Jerusalem. Jesus carried a heavy wooden cross, His whole body bruised with severe cuts and wounds as a result of His brutal physical tortures. At the end of it all, they forced a passer-by to carry His cross: then they dragged Him through the uneven, dirty streets like a dirty rag. On His bleeding head was a crown of thorns.

The poor mother could not but turn her face in utter disappointment. Sympathetic and consoling words could not ease her aching heart in those dreadful moments. His every fall on stony path with His heavy cross was like a deathblow to her. At last, she heard the shrill metallic sound and our Lord’s shrieks of pain as the cruel executioners hammered the nails into His soft flesh. Every stroke of the hammer was dreadful like a death knell. How could a mother bear to witness such torture?

Let us pray