Missionaries of the Sacred Heart

By Br. Joe Tesar, MSC

In Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, he portrayed Mary as Jesus' Mother in several scenes. One showed her running to comfort her little boy who fell down just as my mother or your mother would. Another, my favorite, showed Mary calling her young carpenter son to dinner. He is testing a table he has just made. She tells Jesus to take off that filthy carpenter's apron before he comes inside, just like my mother would. She makes Jesus wash his hands (oh fond memories) and he teasingly splashes water on her and then kisses her on her forehead. I imagine Mary carried such fond memories in her heart. She was used to doing that - just like your mother and mine.

She also carried Simeon's prophesy in her heart, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Luke 2:34-35). Fond memories and painful prophesies. What do they mean? What will happen to my son?

There was the time he stayed in Jerusalem without asking his parents or informing them. How Mary and Joseph worried and searched for him. He would leave them one day. All children leave home sooner or later, but this was too soon. The temple - his Father's house? What did it mean? What would become of him? Mary wondered - just as all mothers do.

Then the trials, the Way of the Cross, and Calvary. The religious leaders and the Roman government had rejected him, condemned him to death, the painful and shameful death of being cruelly scourged, nailed naked to a cross and left for all to see how a criminal dies.

Standing at the foot of his cross Mary heard him forgive his torturers. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus and the sorrow of his sisters even though he knew he was going to raise him up from the dead within the hour. We don't know if Mary knew that her Son would rise from the dead, or what that would really mean. But she did grieve beyond what anyone who has not lost a child could even begin to imagine. She grieved at the terrible pain inflicted upon him. She grieved his being exposed naked to the public. She grieved the lies and the injustice that led to all this. She grieved that he had to die. She grieved that she would never again experience her Son the way she had experienced him before. She grieved like all mothers who have lost their children.

She heard him forgive his torturers. She heard him promise heaven to the compassionate thief. She heard him ask for water, thirsty from loss of blood. She saw the soldiers gambling for the seamless robe she probably had woven for her son. She heard him exercise his duty as her son by asking John to take care of her. She came to understand that she should mother his followers as her children when he was gone. She heard her son, the son who wanted to stay in his Father's house cry out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" She heard him whisper: "it is done" and with a loud cry bow his head and die.

We can imagine how she held his body in her arms, washed it with her tears, touched the many and terrible wounds as if to heal them, torn between grief at the suffering of her son and relief that his pain was over. And once again she began to wonder what does this all mean? What would become of her son? What would become of her?

In her "Yes" to Angel Gabriel, Mary gave herself permission to experience all the joy and pain of a mother/child relationship. Whatever she knew of the theology we think we know would affect her experience the same way it affects ours. We know we will rise again from the dead and will be united again with each other and our Lord. We even know that those who have gone before us are in some way still with us. That is what the Communion of Saints is all about. However, knowing all this does not prevent us from experiencing all the feelings of grief when death claims one of us. Mary knows our grief because she has experienced it to the fullest. Going through the grief brings us to peace again and enables us to be compassionate to others who grieve.

In our grieving and in our dying we can be sure of Mary's understanding and healing presence. That is why we pray innumerable times "Holy Mary, Mother of God, prayer for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen"

Brother Joe Tesar, MSC is a member of our Illinois Community where he assists in the Vocation Office and does volunteer work.