Mulier, ecce filius tuus… Ecce Mater tua. Woman, behold thy son… Behold thy mother.
All antiquity asserts that St. John was ever a virgin, and specially on this account he was given as a son to Mary, and honored in being made to occupy the place of Jesus Christ; on which account the holy Church sings, “To him a virgin He commended his Virgin Mother.” And from the moment of the Lord’s death, as it is written, St. John received Mary into his own house, and assisted and obeyed her throughout her life, as if she had been his own mother.
Jesus said to her, Woman, behold thy son! It is doubted by none that this woman was the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, by means of her Son, would crush the head of Satan. Naturally was Mary the enemy of the serpent, because Lucifer was haughty, ungrateful, and disobedient, while she was humble, grateful, and obedient. It is said, She shall crush thy head, because Mary, by means of her Son, beat down the pride of Lucifer.
God said to the serpent, I will put enmities between- thy seed and the woman. This shows that after the fall of man, through sin, notwithstanding all that would be done by the redemption of Jesus Christ, there would be two families and two posterities in the world, the seed of Satan signifying the family of sinners, his children corrupted by him, and the seed of Mary signifying the holy family, which includes all the just, with their head Jesus Christ. Hence Mary was destined to be the mother both of the head and of the members, namely, the faithful. Therefore, St. John was not called John, but the disciple beloved by the Lord, that we might understand that Mary is the mother of every good Christian who is beloved by Jesus Christ, and in whom Jesus Christ lives by his Spirit.
The pain which the Holy Virgin endured in the Passion of her Son exceeded all the pains which a human heart can endure; but the grief of Mary was not a barren grief, like that of other mothers who behold the sufferings of their children; it was a fruitful grief, since through the merits of her so great grief, and through her love (according to the opinion of St. Augustine), as she was the natural mother of our head Jesus Christ,’ so she then became the spiritual mother of us who are his faithful members, in co-operating with him by her love in causing us to be born, and to be the children of the Church.
[image description: a black and white drawing of a my chemical romance show. It depicts a crowd of people, which are only seen as hands from the wrist up. They are holding lighters and phones with their flashlights on. White text at the top reads: “oh, how wrong we were to think immortality meant never dying”. End description.]
Ave María, dolóribus plena, Crucifíxus tecum: lacrymábilis te in muliéribus, et lacrymábilis fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta María, Mater Crucifíxi: lácrymas impertíre nobis crucifixóribus Fílii tui, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen.
Dios te salve María, llena eres de dolores; Jesús crucificado está contigo; digna eres de llorada y compadecida entre las mujeres, y digno es de ser llorado y compadecido Jesús, fruto bendito de tu vientre. Santa María, Madre del Crucificado, da lágrimas a nosotros crucificadores de tu Hijo, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén.
