A Reflection on the Thirteenth Station of the Cross

A Reflection on the Thirteenth Station of the Cross:

Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

One day a few years ago, as I walked the Stations of the Cross, I was given a mental image of Our Lady and her son, as she held him in her arms at the foot of the Cross. In that image, I saw her kissing His face repeatedly, and wiping it with her tears. Initially, it seemed she was wailing with tears, as mothers are often seen doing when their children die, and especially when they die in such a gruesome and painful manner. Her kisses in that scene were rapid, interrupted only briefly as she paused to wipe first the tears from her own face, then to use those tears to wipe the blood, sweat, and dirt from His.

It was only much later, months or even a year afterward, that I began to see that scene differently. Now, when I come to this Station, I see a mother whose tears are streaming steadily, but whose kisses and face wiping are much more careful and deliberate. She kisses him slowly, and ever so gently, on cheeks, forehead, nose and mouth. She also wipes the cheeks, slowly, from just below the eye, first the left, then the right. She wipes the forehead also, from the center to either side, ever so slowly. She pushes the hair off His face as she does so. Her kisses, though many, each last a second or two, and they are clear indications of the tenderness and the depth of her love for Him. And though she is crying, she does not appear forlorn or even sad in the slightest, but only loving. That is because her love is not only for Him, but for everyone, including especially those who were in any way involved in arranging or carrying out this cruel death He endured.

It was in this way that I began to understand Mary’s role in salvation history in a new and more complete manner. In my initial image, I saw her more as a grieving mother, crying over the horrendous death her only son had endured, and suffering that death nearly as much as He. Her thoughts in that scene were centered almost entirely on Him. However, in the image that developed later, I saw her actions and her acceptance of suffering as reflections of a much greater love than I had ever imagined. She had, after all, spent many of her early years in the temple, listening to the reading of scripture and the teachers of the word. She knew the Torah and the prophets as few men did, and much more than most women.

Therefore, whether or not she knew from the beginning the kind of death her son would endure, she understood it as fulfillment of Sacred Scripture as it unfolded. As importantly, she understood its saving power, and, as His mother, she loved all men just as He did. Her tears, then, were not just those of a mother grieving her son. They were a complex combination of tears of sorrow for her son and those who brought about this seeming tragedy, and tears of greater sorrow for those who had been and those who would be condemned to eternal death. And at the same time, they were tears of joy that her son’s suffering was ended, that He was completely united with His Father, and that His sacrifice had won the Kingdom for all who accepted Him!