Monday, September 15, 2025
Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Mary at the cross
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”
Then he said to the disciple,
“Behold, your mother.”
painting by Pietro Perugino, 1482
Two hundred years before the painting, an Italian poet wrote Stabat Mater (which means “mother standing”). Mary has been – if not worshipped – certainly adored as the woman who restored motherhood after the Fall of Eve and Adam. The mother of God (theotokos) always runs the risk of being made a god herself, which she would not appreciate. She intends always to point us to her son Jesus.
Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi wrote songs, plays and poems in his local Italian vernacular, including Stabat Mater. Here are some of the verses:
At the cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last …
 Oh, how sad and sore distressed
Was that Mother highly blessed
Of the sole begotten One!
 Christ above in torment hangs,
She beneath beholds the pangs
Of her dying, glorious Son …
 Can the human heart refrain
From partaking in her pain,
In that mother’s pain untold?
Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
She beheld her tender Child,
All with bloody scourges rent.
For the sins of his own nation
Saw him hang in desolation
Till his spirit forth he sent.
 Holy Mother, pierce me through,
In my heart each wound renew
Of my Savior crucified.
 Let me mingle tears with you,
Mourning him who mourned for me,
All the days that I may live.
 By the cross with you to stay,
There with you to weep and pray,
Is all I ask of you to give.
 Christ, when you shall call me hence,
Be your Mother my defense,
Be your cross my victory.
From the angel Gabriel’s announcement of her pregnancy, Mary knew she had been chosen by God as the mother of his Son. Always into this glory there would come suffering. Townspeople in Nazareth compelled her unmarried pregnant self to spend months with her Auntie Elizabeth. Nearly full term she walked and rode a donkey alongside Joseph to Bethlehem, a place she had never seen, where no one cared that she was about to deliver, where she finally delivered in the straw (clean at least) of a stable, surrounded by animals. Eventually shepherds came, summoned by the angels, and worshipped her baby boy.
When she and Joseph took him to the temple for his blessing, Simeon’s heart was warmed, but he also had a warning for Mary.
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.
You yourself a sword will pierce.
Perhaps when she heard Simeon’s words Mary’s heart’s fell, but her courage and longsuffering always followed her. Mary was the kind of woman who took in everything and, time after time, invited God to restore her soul. Despair could not take root.  Luke said she “pondered the events of Jesus’ birth in her heart.” Satan never had a chance with Mary.
Paul wrote to Timothy about his own ministry, but Paul’s words fit the ministry of Mary just as well.
This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God, and
there is also one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as ransom for all.
This was the testimony at the proper time.
(1 Timothy 2, Psalm 28, John 19)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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