And from that hour the disciple took her into his home

15 SEPTEMBER (Jn 19,25-27)

The Virgin Mary, by the cross of Jesus, is experiencing a moment of indescribable spiritual suffering. This pain is necessary to her because she must be constituted as the Mother of the disciple of Jesus. While Christ is dying on the Cross, she has to give birth to another son. And there is no delivery if not in great and unmanageable pain.

On the first birth, that of Jesus in the grotto at Bethlehem, the Gospel is silent. It says that Mary gave birth to her firstborn Son, with nothing to add. Where Scripture is silent it is right that the theologian also refrains from adding to it vain, unwise words, which are not pure revelation, but imagination of a mind that is always striving to create thoughts which the Holy Spirit himself abstains.

We know that the birth of Mary at the foot of the Cross was very painful. This is attested by the prophecy of Simeon: “The father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Simeon blessed them and to Mary, his mother, said, “Behold, he is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and as a sign of contradiction – and you yourself a sword will pierce your own soul – so that thoughts may be revealed of many hearts'” (Lk 2.33 to 35). It is in this martyrdom of the soul that she generates the new child, every new child to the Lord our God and Father. It is for this pain that she is the true Mother of Redemption. Every child of God is mystically generated in her, in this ever newpain, in this suffering that as a sharp sword pierces her soul.

In the house of Nazareth the angel Gabriel had asked her to hand herself entirely over to her God to become the Mother of His Only Son. With this vocation She is called to abandon every human project of life in order to deliver her mind, heart, spirit, soul and body to the divine will, in a daily sacrifice and burnt offering of her own being. At the cross Jesus himself, her Only Son, is he one that entrusts her with a new vocation. As she generated, gave birth, raised and supported him, so she must generate, give birth, nurture and support every other man who from a son of darkness must become a child of light, from a son of Eve a true child of God. This vocation will never fail. Even in paradise She will always be the Mother of all the redeemed.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. 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.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

A vocation is not only given to Mary, it is also given to the disciple. Like Mary he must always give birth, generate and raise every new child of God, every new disciple of Jesus; so it is necessary that every disciple of Jesus, every new child of God, takes Mary with him, accepts her and receives her in his house. This is not only a matter of one vocation: that of the Virgin Mary. We are facing two vocations: that of the Mother and that of the disciple. One cannot be lived without the other. Mary and the disciple must become one, not two. Nor can we think that the love of the heavenly Mother is enough for our salvation. If the vocations are two, the one and the other are needed. Excluding one is placing yourself out of the mystery of life.

Mother and son have to be a single spiritual, physical, moral, ascetical and mystical entity. Jesus asks his son to accept Mary as his real Mother and to love her in the same way He loved her; and his first love is to have chosen her as his parent, his giver of life. If the disciple of Jesus does not choose Mary as bearer of his spiritual and moral life, in the truth and holiness of Lord Christ, there is no hope of salvation for him. He lacks in who every day generates him to the new life in Christ Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Virgin Mary is not one of the many male and female saints who are in Heaven. These are our friends. But she is the Mother that must always regenerate us as true children of our God and Father.

Angels and Saints make us be true children of the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption.