The Passion

How sad it must have been for Christ to see around Him at the foot of the Cross so few compassionate friends. There before Him, then, was his whole Church, the fruit of so many labors, the reward for so many favors, the result of so many miracles! His heart was filled with anguish as He beheld His poor mother at the foot of the Cross. The approaching tragedy, the farewells, had broken her heart and His own, and the thought of her distress was present with Him until death.

As she looked upon Christ’s pain, she clearly saw that He was suffering more for her sake than for all others, and that but for the foreseen merits of His suffering she would not have been Immaculate. The Blessed Virgin knew that if Christ had not loved her to that extent, He should not have suffered so much. So she considered herself the cause of His suffering. In the divine plan she could not but wish to see Him suffer, and that wish tortured her mother’s heart.

In pity Christ looked long and sadly upon her, there at the foot of the Cross. That long last look of His, veiled as it was by the shadow of death, plumbed her soul to its deepest depths and never left her as long as she lived. The executioners tortured Jesus and the Justice of His Father did not restrain their blows.


In Christ,

Rev. Jeffery A. Fasching