MOTHER OF MERCY
The scene is Calvary on the first Good Friday. Our Saviour's passion is ever—the agony in the garden, the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the cruel journey to Golgotha's heights. He has been hanging there on the cross for three hours, undergoing the agony of death that we might live forever. His oblation of love to God the Father is about to be consummated. His life is slowly ebbing away. Gone now is the fickle multitude that only a few short days before took palm branches and went forth to meet him, crying, "Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel" (John 12:13). His disciples, fearful lest they should share His fate, have deserted Him, and gone into hiding. Of His apostles, all but John have fled. Even Peter—the rock—has denied Him thrice.
But mother love remains faithful to the end. Mary, who had held her Divine Son to her breast at Bethlehem, followed Him to Calvary. "There stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother" (John 19:25). The bloodstained lips of the Master part, and He speaks the memorable words: "Woman, behold thy son;" and then to the apostle, "Behold thy mother." . . . "And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own" (John 19:26, 27).
Having given Himself for our redemption, Our Lord makes this last great gift to us, for John represented all mankind on Calvary. Thus, by explicit command of the God-Man, His mother was given to the human race as its mother—the Mother of Mercy, to serve as our refuge, our strength, and our mediatrix with Him. And Mary opened her arms to us and willingly accepted us as her children. Indeed, in the words of St. Bernardine of Siena; "At the same moment when Mary consented to become the Mother of God, she also consented to become the Mother of all children, of salvation, and bore them already at that time in her Heart."
If, as the poet wrote, "Verily, there is a holiness in women we men know nothing of," it is because of a precious legacy which through Mary is glorified, sanctified, and beatified. Because of Mary's part in the Redemption of mankind, because of the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth, the attitude of the whole world toward womanhood and motherhood changed, and woman herself was raised to a
