464 PART III. AFTER CHAPTER IV. THE FOURTH WATCH OF THE DAY. 3 to 6 P.M. SCENE I. CALVARY. THE NINTH HOUR. HOLY MARY. STATION I. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother A. By the Cross of Jesus. Christ the Lord is dead. Let us look at Him Whom we pierced. His Sacred Passion is ended. His Eternal Father will now wipe all tears from (His) eyes; and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away (Apoc. xxi.). The bitter separation shall never come again. Nor ever again shall the loud cry of anguish burst from His lips: His place is in peace, and His abode in Sion (Psalm lxxv.). B. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother. Let us fix our eyes on the Blessed Mother; for her passion is not ended. As her Divine Son suffers no more, no new compassion will come to agonise her. But now her own peculiar passion begins. For He is dead and she survives. "Surely," John and Magdalen are thinking, as they gaze on her, "surely the silver cord of life will be broken, the golden fillet of beauty and grace will shrink back upon her brow. The pitcher that holds her heart's blood will be crushed at the fountain, and the wheel of her nativity will be broken on the cistern. And the dust shall return into its earth from whence it came, and the spirit return to God Who gave it. She shall go into the house of (her) eternity, and the mourners shall go round about the street (Eccles. xii.). The little flock will be left doubly desolate; for she must die. She cannot outlive this hour." C. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother. To-night, when all is over, and the still moonlight rests over Jerusalem and Calvary as if there had been nothing but peace, the scared disciples will be whispering together in the Cenacle; and one will say to John or to Nicodemus or to Joseph, or to Magdalen or to Mary of Cleophas: "What happened to the Blessed Mother? Did she seem near to death? Did she swoon? Did she become unconscious?" And the privileged eye-witness will answer: 'No, never for a moment was she insensible. When He was drawing His last breath, she too was gasping for breath, and her frame was quivering, and we feared much that she would sink down and not rise again. But in the moment of His Death, it was as if a new life came to her. She stood erect; her tears flowed fast; but there was a heavenly beauty on her face, such as we never saw before. • Full of grace! full of grace!' my heart was saying, as I looked on her." D. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother. We are allowed in contemplation to try, while gazing on her features and her outward demeanour, to discover some little of what is passing in her soul. This, then, we know, that our Lord died loving; He was loving His own to the end, till His Heart broke and He gave up the ghost. (For, as we have seen, it is the opinion of learned commentators that the breaking of His Heart was the immediate cause of death.) But death did not put an end to His love. If He ended His life on earth, loving, His Blessed Soul began its new existence, loving. As His holy angels gather around to greet Him, at once He gives them a loving command to watch over His suffering Mother: " Angelis suis mandavit de te"-He gave His angels a charge concerning thee, Blessed among women, to protect thee from all danger of invasion, or of the noonday devil (Psalm xc.). There shall no evil come to thee, Holy Mary, full of grace! E. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother. Holy contemplatives tell us that in this hour, Lucifer and his wicked legions are cast down once more into the lowest Hell, with a fall far more appalling than the first; and that it is the voice of the woman, the Blessed among women, that hurls them down. They are far away now, and cannot molest her. F. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother. David, when he heard of the death of his unworthy son, said as he went weeping to his chamber: My son, Absalom; Absalom, my son; who would grant me that I might die for thee? And he covered his head and cried with a loud voice: O my son, Absalom! O Absalom, my son! O my son! (2 Kings xviii.). Our Blessed Lady passes beyond all this. At every step of the Sacred Passion her heart has been yearning that she might spare her Son by suffering instead of Him. It would be relief unspeakable if she might bear the wrench of bitter death in place of Him, or even be allowed to die along with Him. But she loves Him too well to urge this prayer. Her one desire now is: Not as i will, my God, but as Thou The love of her heart is stronger than death, and offers most willingly to do a harder thing than to die, that is, to live on after Him. G. There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother. Oh, with what contentment do the blessed angels execute the charge given them concerning her, to comfort her, and watch over her! Once more her own Archangel is whispering into her soul the words that were the beginning of her joy: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. More than ever is He with her now, for His word |