There is a heart-touching scene portrayed in Mel Gibson’s movie ‘The Passion of the Christ. It may be familiar to everyone, but a scene that shows a little more of the other side of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jesus is being stoned to death in Pilate’s court after interrogation. He was beaten with whips and became extremely humiliated and ridiculed. He was handcuffed to a narrow rock in the ground and sentenced to stay overnight.
Mother Mary was the only one who does not go anywhere even though he was captured. The disciples who were with him like shadows ran and hide somewhere. When Mary knows that Jesus has been imprisoned, she leans on the stone slabs above the stone prison where her son is standing. A scene where the immensity of love and care is evident! The son knows that his mother came upstairs and listened. A heartbreaking scene in which Jesus slowly looks up in silence and then bows down without saying anything. The huge similarity of the scene is that they both do not talk.
A mother’s chest-splitting pain can be seen in her face. But she says nothing. She is so quiet. Any woman can come to the top of a cliff like this and not cry out in such a situation (in other sense she was meditating in silence for the sound of her son’s breathing … ) From the day she heard the prophecy of Simeon, she was not expressed like any other women or mothers. That is why the Holy Mother must be described as the most powerful woman the world has ever seen.
There is no other woman in history who has endured so much mental torture in her life. The mother who had to witness all of this, when she had to give birth in a stable, when she lost her son at the age of twelve, and when her only son suffered the worst crucifixion, as the Jews think! She does not get tired anywhere, does not cry outside, does not complain to anyone. Everything endures in silence. But rather than the word ‘suffering’, the mother is more like a mother who meditated and prayed exemplary through silence. Even a small prayer is not enough to go through so many pressures like this … a little meditation is not enough in life … The Holy Mother is showing through her own life that a woman can and a mother can do all that.
The presence of the Blessed Mother is evident throughout Jesus’ life. We can understand the importance of the mother in the all-around formation of a person by God’s choice of the incarnate Mary. By the age of thirty, the ‘carpenter’s son’ must have been closest to his own mother. She must have been Jesus’ dearest friend. Thirty years of living with his mother were also great preparation for the coming three years for Jesus. Preparation for the big meditation with his girlfriend. It must be because this woman was a friend that Jesus was able to treat others with particular compassion and dignity, especially the women whom He met.
At the wedding at Cana, Mother Mary would not have been able to imagine that the host would be humiliated in front of the guests. How can the son of a mother who is so compassionate see not only women but everyone with respect? The sinful woman, Martha and Mary, the bleeding woman, and Mary Magdalene were among the women whom God loved, respected, healed, and brought back to life. Today’s mothers must teach their children to respect the opposite sex. There is a great example set by the Blessed Mother years ago for all the ages of boys and their mothers. The role model that is most relevant and essential over time.
Women generally face the category of Second Sex in all walks of life. But the Holy Mother shows through her life experiences that no one else has as much power as a woman. The body of Jesus on the cross is lying on the lap of the Blessed Mother. If the Virgin Mary has shown enough strength to hold the body of her own son, who died on Calvary, in her lap, then surely the equation of woman as agile is something that should only be confined to literature.
Later, in the Refractory of Zehion, it was Mother who encouraged the frightened disciples to receive the Holy Spirit in prayer and to prepare them for the proclamation of the Gospel. None of this requires a little strength. It should not be described as austerity. Rather, it is the immense faith of the mind based on prayer and meditation. Without deep faith in God, neither woman nor man can face this.
The Holy Mother is another example of how speech and silence can balance life. The mother is not the one who adopts silence for everything. When the angel Gabriel comes and announces the good news, she replies, “How can this be, since I am Virgin?”, “Child, why have you treated us like this?” finding the temple at the age of 12, is some reasonable and apt speech. But Mary had been silent in many instances. The mother and son meet as Jesus walks carrying the cross. They look at each other but say nothing. They must have been comforting each other with their hearts. A time when words become irrelevant. We can follow the example given by St. Mary in dealing with the sorrows of life by raising our eyes to God and trusting in Him without complaint or apprehension. We deserve respect when we give prominence to the most logical discourse by speaking where necessary.
The Church places great importance on devotion to the Blessed Mother. None of our faith truths are complete without the mother. The Holy Mother is the link that illuminates that great truth that unites the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Church takes the worship and devotion to the mother very seriously. That is why in theology there is even a branch of science called Mariology, which specializes in the study of the mother scientifically. No other branch of theology exists to study such a particular case of a woman. Then you can understand the depth of the great life messages given by the Holy Mother as a woman!
There is no need to describe the presence of motherhood in the life of each of us. But let’s go back to the ‘Passion of the Christ. There is a scene where Jesus falls with the cross. An incident in her childhood suddenly flashes in the mind of her mother Mary. The baby Jesus is going up the stairs. The mother, who was cooking, immediately ran to her son and said, “I am here – I am here.” The greatest comfort and reassurance a baby can get is that his own mother is by his side. The same thing is repeated later when Jesus grows up. The mother says to her son, who is about to fall with the cross, ‘I am here.’-Â What a great consolation! This is a belief in what we need.
The great belief is that there is a mother by her side when she often falls with the cross in life. That is why we must seek the intercession of the Mother. The belief is that we have a good mother who is always there for us when we pray with the rosary in our hands, ‘Now and at the hour of our death’. That is the faith that Christians must hold fast to in any crisis.
Sunisha V.F.