Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the disciple standing whom He loved, He saith to His Mother: "Woman, behold thy son." After that He saith to the disciple: "Behold thy Mother." And from that hour the disciple took her to his own. - John 19:25-27
1. Of all the scenes in the Passion, there is none more familiar to every one of us than this. The crowd has dwindled away; even its noisy exultation has not been able to keep up its false courage for long. There remain a few, waiting to see the end; but these, no doubt, are not those who have been most violent; they are the partially sympathetic, the more or less faithful remnant, the curious. There remains, too, the guard, mainly of Roman soldiers, divided between contempt for the Victim and contempt for the people who have made such a display of their Eastern ferocity. It is true these soldiers have played their part in the cruelty; but they are Western souls, they are more easily sated in their lust for blood, and they stand there sullen and disgusted. Instinctively, without themselves noticing it, the true mourners have crept closer and closer; the guard does not trouble to prevent them; they find some comfort for themselves in this act of mercy. So three women stand there Mary Immaculate, Mary the Penitent, Mary the mother of Apostles.
2. There is also at least one more "the disciple whom He loved." Saint John, in thus speaking of himself, does not mean that Our Lord did not love others also; he does not mean that he was himself loved more than others; it is enough for him to know that in matter of fact he is loved, and has been given tokens of deep love, whatever else may have been given to others. Peter also was a "disciple whom He loved"; the last scene recorded by Saint John at the end of his Gospel is a great proof of this; but the same might be said of them all, of us all. It is not a little thing to stand at the foot of the cross, and to know that I can describe myself, in spite of all my cowardice, my desertions, my denials, my treacheries, as "the disciple standing whom He loved."
3. Jesus saw them from the cross. Consider the simple fact. Fastened as He was, the physical effort to look at anything must have been an additional torture; one has seen a semblance of it on a death-bed of torture. In such agony as He was, the effort to think of others was a wonder of charity; we forgive much disregard from those who are in intense suffering. But Jesus saw them; He saw that motionless Mother; He knew that for her His death must naturally mean her own; that her love and her life were so linked with His that when He died she too would fade and die. But He would not have it so. He would yet have her to live, for she had a work to do; "that out of many hearts thoughts might be revealed." She must be given another object of her Mother's love, another child to cherish in place of the one she was losing. There was John; there was all mankind; let her take him and them. "Woman, behold thy son." And if so, then let John, let all men, do to her as He Himself had done: "Man, behold thy Mother."
Summary
1. There stood by the cross of Jesus the soldiers and the three Marys.
2. There stood also the disciple whom He loved.
3. He gave Mary to the disciple, and the disciple to Mary.
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier