The Eleventh Station--Jesus Speaks to His Mother

                 Crucifixion

"A choir of angels glorified the hour
the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire.
'Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?
Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me...'


Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed,
His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared.
His mother stood apart. No other looked
into her secret eyes.
Nobody dared."
--Anna Akhmatova, translated from the Russian
  Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward
       





"And 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 whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother!'" 
  --John 19. 25b-27


Whose Mother?

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or his mother’s sister.

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or Mary Magdalene or the wife of Clopas.

Whose Mother did Mary reach out to?

Mary or Trayvon’s mother?

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or that woman in a burka?

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or that old woman in a nursing home?

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or that mother that misses her soldier son?

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or the Lilly Ledbetters of the world.

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or that woman who trembles in a hovel in Iraq?

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Mary or all the other mothers who stand by and watch and weep.

Whose Mother did Jesus reach out to?

Whose Mother?

Whose Mother?

Whose Mother?

  --Roger Lovette

(The moving rendering of Jesus and his mother was done by artist Cecile L. K. Martin of Seneca, South Carolina. The photo at the end of this meditation is the mother of Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton.