Recently my 4-year-old saw a picture of Michelangelo's Pieta and asked why Mary was holding Jesus in her lap. I told her that after Jesus died on the cross and was taken down, He was placed in Mary's lap.
"But why?" was the response. Because, I said, she was His mother and she wanted to hold Jesus again before they took Him away to the tomb. "But why did Mary want to hold Him?" was the next probing question that came from the mouth of the girl who cannot stand the sight of the slightest amount of blood coming from the smallest scrape and knew how bloody Jesus' body must have been.
I thought for a second before answering this part, because I was forced to picture how messy a scene it must have been for Mary to hold her grown Son, so badly beaten, His precious Blood staining her hands and clothes. Finally, I told my daughter that Mary wanted to hold Jesus because she loved Him, because she was His mother and because she was sad that He had died. There were no more questions.
Though my daughter's curiosity was satisfied, I found myself thinking about this Lenten scene over and over, long after our conversation had past. The questions of a 4-year-old had spurred a new Lenten perspective in my mind that I had never really entertained before — Mary's perspective. Sometimes it seems that Mary's shining moment comes at Christmas and then she is forgotten, but Scripture tells us that she was there through Jesus' sufferings, death and resurrection, and we have a lot to learn from her.
Theologians have speculated over the last 2,000 years on how much Mary knew about her Son and what was going to happen to Him. But really, we know enough about what Mary knew about her Son. When Jesus was conceived in her womb, Mary was told He was the Son of God, the Messiah and she would have known all the implications of those titles. She was a faithful young Jewish girl, a virgin of the Temple, who knew her Scriptures and prophecies. We also know that when she and St. Joseph presented the child Jesus in the Temple, Simeon told Mary "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword shall pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Lk 2: 34-35). Mary certainly knew that her Son's life wasn't going to be easy, that suffering would be a big part. At times her heart was probably quite heavy with this knowledge, especially painful for an immaculate heart such as hers.
As the New Eve, Mary stood by her Son in His darkest hours of sufferings. With no regard for her own safety and knowing how difficult it would be to see Jesus suffer, Mary stayed close to Him until the end. How many times in our own lives, when things get rough, have we run away from Jesus? How many times do we hide from suffering or avoid sacrifice, instead of thinking of Christ's sacrifice for us? Mary has so much to teach us in this regard, with the ultimate lesson being to stay close to her Son.
In his 1992 book Mary: Mirror of the Church, papal household preacher Father Raniero Cantalamessa details the significance of Mary's presence throughout the paschal mystery. One of his reflections, which is almost a prayer, makes a good Lenten meditation. He writes: "Let us follow Mary in the paschal mystery and allow her to guide us in a deeper understanding of Easter and participation in Christ's sufferings. May Mary take us by the hand and encourage us to follow her along this way as she tells us, like a mother talking to her children gathered round her, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him' (John 11:16). In the Gospel, these words were uttered by Thomas, but it was Mary who lived them" (P. 80).
