The Fourth Stations

Jesus Meets His Mother

We adore You, O Christ and we praise You.

Because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.

A crowd forms. So many faces, so many strangers come to stare. Shouts and curses mingle with the sounds of sadness, sympathy, and fear. Together they rise in a vibration You feel to Your core. Amidst all this strangeness, You sense a quiet, familiar light.

As a mother comforts her son,

so will I comfort you;

in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.

(Is 66:13)

Your mother draws You with her eyes. You see her pain but know more deeply her love. For a moment, You are a child. She takes a bit of Your suffering and carries it on her heart as only a mother can.

I see my mother standing in this crowd. How I wish she could have been spared this. But she knows, more than anyone else, that I was meant to bear this Cross. Someday she will love it as I do. For she is more than just my mother, she is mother to all who seek You, Father. This Cross is weighted with their sins and sorrows. I carry its burden to set them free.

We pray. Dear God, how Mary's heart must have broken to see her only Son beaten, bloodied, and bearing the Cross. While no stranger to violence, she could never have imagined this reality. In spite of her pain, she stood among the crowd who mocked her only beloved child. She stood for Him, to give Him comfort and strength, peace and power. She stood for us, as a model of faith, loyalty, and unconditional love. Help us to stand beside her.

Amen.

The pain of watching one we love suffer is often greater than feeling pain ourselves. We cry out to God asking why us, and why them. It can seem so unjust. This station reminds us to look to Mary in our times of deepest pain and greatest struggle.

[excerpt from Stations of the Cross by Denise Hemrich-Skomer and Fr. Joachim Tyrtania. ©2009. Nihil Obstat: Charles McNamee, J.C.L. Censor Librorum. Imprimatur: Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D, Bishop of Rockford]