Deacon Jim Olson’s Reflection
May 24, 2021
572A 5-24-21 8th WOT John 19:25-34
“The spotless purity of John’s whole life makes him strong before the cross. Don’t forget that purity strengthens and invigorates the character” (St Escriva, The Way, 144).
Our Lord’s gesture in entrusting His Blessed Mother to the disciple’s care, has a dual meaning. For one thing, it expresses His filial love for the Virgin Mary.
St Augustine sees it as a lesson Jesus gives us on how to keep the fourth Commandment: “Here is a lesson in morals. He is doing what he tells us to do and, like a good teacher, he instructs his own by example, that it is the duty of good children to take care of their parents; as though the wood on which his dying members were fixed were also the chair of the teaching master.” (St Augustine, In Loann. Evang., 119,2)
Our Lord’s words also declare that Mary is our Mother:
“The Blessed Virgin also advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered on her union with her Son unto the cross, where she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, associating herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim who was born of her. Finally, she was given by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross as a mother to his disciple”. (NBC 233)
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