At the Foot of the Cross with our Sorrowful Mother

 

At the Crucifixion, with our Sorrowful Mother

1. They are taking off Jesus’ own garment now, my child, the one I made for Him. The pain caused by the re-opening of the wounds is terrible. He is meriting grace for us to be detached from everything, at whatever cost to ourselves.

2. Listen, my child: they are hammering in the nails, yet He is praying: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The next time you are deliberately doing something which you know He does not like, remember this terrible sound, and remember that it is you who are pounding in the nails. And try to forgive others as He has forgiven you.

3. They have lifted the Cross up now, and jolted it into the hole prepared for it. Mary leads me quite close, to stand with her while her Son is dying. She tells me to draw near enough to let the Blood drip on me, and she tells me to remember this every time I receive absolution: that I am close to Jesus, to Whom I have confessed my sins, and the Blood dripping from His wounds is washing them away.

4. While the soldiers and the crowd, and even the chief priests and scribes, are jeering and mocking Jesus, Mary tells me to make acts of contrition and love and reparation. “He saved others, Himself He cannot save,” they cry. Yes, it is true: He cannot save Himself, because He will not. Love prevents Him, love for me. My Jesus, I love thee. I will not sin again.

5. One of the thieves, who was only a moment ago blaspheming, is now making acts of faith and contrition, and asking Jesus to remember him when He comes into His Kingdom. Jesus answers: “This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” Mary points out that it is his act of perfect contrition which has opened Paradise to him, as it has done and will do for countless numbers who have never heard of the Sacraments, or who could not have them. It is because He would have all men to be saved that God has made the conditions so easy.

6. Jesus is now speaking to His Mother: “Woman, behold thy son,” and to John, who is with her: “Behold thy Mother.” John draws closer to her with the protecting air of a son. Jesus died that we might be sons of God and children of Mary. Son, behold thy Mother. I, too, draw close to her, for Jesus has given her to me, too.

7. Long we wait in the silence and darkness. Mary, I know, is pondering things in her heart, and I try to do the same. I cannot find anything to say, but it is enough to be thus close to Jesus and Mary. It is almost the ninth hour when Jesus breaks the intense silence, crying with a loud voice as though He were calling to someone very far away: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Mary tells me that He is feeling the pain of the loss of God, that I may never feel it.

8. Again Jesus speaks, “I thirst.” His Mother would love to quench that terrible thirst, but she cannot. His spiritual thirst, which is even more intense than the physical, she is quenching, and so is John. She tells me that I am helping to quench it too, by standing at the foot of the Cross and giving Him my love, my contrition, and my reparation. It is for these that He thirsts.

9. “It is consummated.” “I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do.” It is His sixth word. And then, saying, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. He has done everything that His Father planned for Him to do for my salvation. “Greater love hath no man, than this.”

10. Colloquy with His Mother and mine as we walk back from Calvary.