Mother and Child

Read this carefully. It involves the Passion of Christ. His carrying the cross to Golgotha, encountering the women of Jerusalem and His mother. Perceive and understand the relationship of Mary and Jesus. This is not criticism of the women of Jerusalem. It is a statement about Mary—the women who raised Jesus, who took everything into her heart including the words of Simeon, the Woman of Sorrows remaining silent–the intimacy between mother and Divine Son, the intimacy between the Savior of the world and the Queen of Heaven.

There is a sharp contrast here between His mother and the women of Jerusalem to whom He spoke: and the contrast is in the fact that He spoke. They love Him and sorrow for Him, but their sorrow seems too noisy, as though there is an element of self-pity in it, as though they are, in fact, calling attention to themselves, and instead of consoling Him, they look to Him to console them. In Mary is the silence of strength, and so she can give Him the strength of her silence: it is what she is there to do. In her, there are the two contradictory agonies: the longing to save Him from his unbearable agony and the effort to help Him to finish His work; and it is the second that she must do, giving Him to the world on the cross as she has given Him to the world in the stable.  – – Father Gerald Vann ‘Mary’s Answer for Our Troubled Times’

Silence of Mary: Holy Mary, Mother of God, you who treasured all things and pondered them carefully in your heart, teach us that deep, interior silence which enfolded you throughout your lifetime.

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