Saint Josemaría Escrivá - Jesus Meets His Mother

Fourth Station - Jesus is Met by His Mother

No sooner has Jesus risen from his first fall than he meets his Blessed Mother, standing by the wayside where He is passing.

With immense love Mary looks at Jesus, and Jesus at his Mother. Their eyes meet, and each heart pours into the other its own deep sorrow. Mary 's soul is steeped in bitter grief, the grief of Jesus Christ.

O all you that pass by the way, look and see, was there ever a sorrow to compare with my sorrow! (Lam 1:12).

But no one notices, no one pays attention; only Jesus.

Simeon 's prophecy has been fulfilled: thy own soul a sword shall pierce (Luke 2:35).

In the dark loneliness of the Passion, Our Lady offers her Son a comforting balm of tenderness, of union, of faithfulness; a 'yes ' to the divine will.

Hand in hand with Mary, you and I also want to console Jesus, by accepting always and in everything the Will of his Father, of our Father.

Only thus will we taste the sweetness of Christ 's Cross, and come to embrace it with all the strength of Love, carrying it in triumph along the ways of the earth.

Points for meditation

1. What man would not weep seeing the Mother of Christ in such cruel torment?

Her Son so stricken... and we, cowards, keep our distance, not wanting to accept the Will of God.

My Mother and Lady, teach me how to pronounce a 'yes ' which, like yours, will identify with the cry Jesus made before his Father: non mea voluntas... (Luke 22:42): not my will but God 's be done.

2. So much wretchedness! So many offences! Mine, yours, those of all mankind...

Et in peccatis concepit me mater mea! In sins did my mother conceive me! (Ps 50:7). I, like all men, came into the world stained with the guilt of our first parents. And then... my own sins: rebellions, thought about, desired, committed...

To purify us of this rottenness, Jesus willed to humble himself and take on the form of a slave (cf. Phil 2:7), becoming incarnate in the spotless womb of Our Lady, his Mother, who is also your Mother and mine. He spent thirty years in obscurity, working as any other man, at Joseph 's side. He preached. He worked miracles... and we repaid him with the Cross.

Do you need more motives for contrition?

3. Jesus had been waiting for this meeting with his Mother. How many childhood memories! Bethlehem, the flight into distant Egypt, the village of Nazareth. Now again he wants her by his side, on Calvary.

We need her!... In the darkness of the night, when a little child is afraid, it cries out: 'Mummy! '

That is what I have to do, to cry out many times with my heart: 'Mother! Mummy! Don 't leave me. '

4. There is still a little way to go before reaching true abandonment. If you have not attained it yet, do not worry: keep up the effort. A day will come when you won 't see any way other than Him —Jesus —, his Blessed Mother, and the supernatural means that the Master has left us.

5. If we are souls of faith, we will give to earthly happenings a very relative importance, just as the saints did... Our Lord and his Mother will not abandon us and, whenever it is necessary, they will make their presence felt to fill the hearts of their loved ones with security and peace.