The Life of Mary as Seen by the Mystics Read online

  As John came near to speak to him, Peter ran off and made his way to a cave on Mount Olivet. Because of his perfect contrition, Mary obtained that God should soon forgive him, and she sent one of her angels to console him invisibly.

  When she heard Peter’s words, the Mother of God sank onto the stone pavement for a moment. Then, wishing to go still closer to her Son, she rose up and was led by John to a spot where she could hear the sighs of Jesus and the insults and blows which He was enduring.

  While Magdalen was now too completely upset to control the violence of her grief, by a special grace the Blessed Virgin appeared marvelously dignified and majestic in her ever increasing suffering, although she seemed to be more like a dying than a living person.

  Some men in the crowd coming out of the palace recognized her and exclaimed roughly:

  “Isn’t that the Galilean’s mother? Her Son will certainly be crucified, though not until after the Festival—unless He is really the greatest of criminals!”

  As Jesus was now dragged to a filthy underground prison cell to spend the hours until dawn, Mary and the Holy Women sadly returned to Martha’s home. The Mother of God prayed still more fervently for her Son and by her intercession prevented His drunken jailers from torturing Him.

  After sunrise Caiphas sent Jesus to Pilate. Although John warned the Blessed Virgin that it would break her heart to see her Son after He had been so defiled and disfigured as to be nearly unrecognizable, Mary took her mantle and veil, and said firmly:

  “Let us follow my Son to Pilate. My eyes must see Him again.”

  In the crowded streets she had to listen to the cruel comments of hardhearted persons concerning the guilt and fate of the Redeemer. Yet she prayed for them all.

  Then at a sharp turn in the street she came upon the procession. At last she saw Jesus again. But now He was staggering along, bound and chained, covered with bruises and saliva, constantly being jerked forward by the ropes which His merciless guards held. Through it all He remained a meek and silent victim, humbly submitting to a storm of inhuman mockery, curses, and insults. For a second Mary was so shocked that she gasped:

  “Is this my Son? O Jesus, my Jesus!”

  Then she quickly prostrated herself on the ground and worshiped her Lord with special fervor as a reparation to His desecrated divinity. And when He passed close by her, Mother and Son exchanged a brief look charged with mutual love and compassion.

  Following bravely after Jesus, Mary came to the palace of Pilate, and from a corner of the forum she witnessed the first Roman trial. As she saw with what furious hatred the enemies of Christ attacked Him and mercilessly sought His death, she held her mantle before her face and quietly wept tears of blood. Now she prayed that as far as possible she might accompany her Son until the end. And she also prayed that Pilate should clearly see the truth of Jesus’ innocence. God granted both of her requests.

  While the Saviour was being dragged to and from the palace of Herod, the Blessed Virgin obtained by her prayers that her angels might prevent their Lord from being tripped and thrown to the ground and trampled upon by the crowd.

  When He was again brought before Pilate, the Holy Women heard a rumor that the Roman Governor was trying to release Jesus. Trembling and shuddering with all the hopes and fears of a mother, Mary’s heart was cruelly torn between her natural desire for her Son’s safety and her supernatural submission to the will of God.

  But soon Pilate weakly yielded to the fury of the enemies of Jesus by freeing Barabbas and condemning the Galilean to be scourged.

  As the innocent Victim was being stripped and attached to a pillar, for an instant He turned His head toward His Mother, who was standing with the Holy Women not far from the scourging place, and it seemed as though He were saying to her: “O My Mother, turn your eyes from Me!” At this point Mary fainted in the arms of her companions.

  Nevertheless for forty-five minutes she witnessed in vision the scourging of her divine Son by three successive pairs of cursing Egyptian slaves armed with hard cords, thorny branches, and chains equipped with sharp iron hooks. The compassionate Mother of God felt in her body all the torture of the blows with the same intensity as did Jesus in His. Frequently low moans burst forth from her lips. With Christ, she offered up all this suffering to atone for mankind’s sins of sensuality.

  When Jesus was driven into the praetorium after the scourging, to submit to the crowning with thorns, He wiped the blood from His eyes in order to see His afflicted Mother. As He passed, she lifted her hands toward Him in agony and gazed after Him at His bloodstained footsteps. Then she and Magdalen knelt down before the pillar to which He had been attached, and with some cloth they reverently soaked up every drop of the Precious Blood of the Saviour.

  The Blessed Virgin was dressed in a long robe, almost sky blue, and over it she wore a long, white, woolen mantle and veil. Her cheeks had become pale and haggard, her nose pinched and long, and her eyes quite bloodshot from weeping. Yet she still maintained her indescribably plain and simple appearance and beauty.

  Everything about Mary was so pure and innocent and dignified that her unique sanctity was immediately evident to all who saw her. Even under the stress of her intense suffering, all her actions were restrained and gentle and humble. As she gazed around, her look was filled with quiet nobility. When she turned her head her veil fell in soft and graceful folds. Her clothes remained spotless and in perfect order. More than ever there was something supernatural about her purity and simplicity and holiness. Not for one moment did she stop praying for the enemies and torturers of her Son.

  When, after the crowning with thorns, which the Blessed Virgin saw in vision, Jesus was again brought before the people and Pilate exclaimed: “Behold the Man!”, Mary fell onto her knees and worshiped the Lord, while His enemies shouted: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

  But when Mary heard her Son formally condemned to die on the cross, though her heart was pierced with grief, she did not faint, but calmly comforted John and three of her companions who had swooned away. She prayed to God to strengthen them, in order that they might stay with her until the end of the Passion.

  During the carrying of the cross, the Blessed Virgin begged John to take her to some place where her Son would pass. They therefore waited at the entrance of a certain large house on the way.

  As the tragic procession approached, Mary threw herself on her knees, and after praying fervently she turned to John and said:

  “Shall I stay here? Oh, how can I bear it?”

  John answered:

  “If you do not stay, you will always bitterly regret it.”

  Soon some men carrying the instruments for the execution passed by. Looking at Mary in a triumphant and insolent way, one of them said:

  “Who is that woman weeping so much over there?”

  Another replied:

  “She’s the Galilean’s mother!”

  When the brutes heard this, they made fun of Mary, pointing their fingers at her. One of the coarse youths threateningly shook the nails for the cross in her face. But the Blessed Virgin, though she was deathly pale, only leaned against the door and watched intently for her Son.

  At last she caught sight of Him: He was almost sinking under the cross, and His head was drooping in agony on His shoulder.

  With His bloody, deep-sunken eyes He cast a look of intense compassion at His suffering Mother. Then, utterly exhausted, He fell onto His hands and knees under the cross.

  In her anguish and love Mary forgot the soldiers and executioners. She saw nothing but her afflicted Son. From the doorway she rushed through the procession to Him, and throwing herself onto her knees beside Jesus, she embraced Him lovingly and tenderly.

  Confusion followed. The officers shouted orders to the guards, while John and the Holy Women tried to draw Mary back.

  One of the executioners said to Mary insultingly:

  “If you had brought Him up better, He would not be here now!”

  Several of the R
oman soldiers, however, were deeply touched, and they conducted the Mother of Jesus to one side.

  As the Saviour staggered on toward Calvary, Mary fell half-fainting against a stone near the doorway, and two disciples carried her inside the house. By the redoubled fervor of her prayers, she obtained from God that a few minutes later her Son might be given someone to help Him carry His cross.

  After the procession had passed, Mary and John and their friends followed it along the sorrowful way to Calvary.

  The Blessed Virgin said to St. Bridget of Sweden:

  “At the first blow (of the scourging), I fell as if dead, and on recovering my senses, I beheld His Body bruised and beaten to the very ribs, so that His ribs could be seen.

  “As my Son was going to the place of His Passion, some men struck Him on the back and others hit Him in the face. And He was struck so violently and so brutally that although I did not see the person striking Him, I distinctly heard the sound of the blows.”

  Jesus Meets His Mother

  XXXI

  The Crucifixion

  As Described by the Mother of Sorrows to St. Bridget of Sweden

  hen I came with Him to the place of the Passion, I saw there all the instruments prepared for His death.

  He was ordered to take off His robe, and He immediately did so. And after He had undressed Himself, the soldiers said to one another: “These clothes belong to us, because He who is condemned to death will not use them again.”

  Now upon being ordered to do so, He lay down on His back on the cross and stretched out first His right arm. Then His cruel executioners seized Him. First they attached His right hand to the beam, in which a nail hole had been prepared, and they drove the nail through His hand in the part where the bone was firmest.

  Then they pulled His other hand in the opposite direction with a rope, as it did not reach the other nail hole, and they nailed it down in the same way.

  Next they nailed His right foot, and over it the left, so that all the nerves and veins were torn apart and broken.

  Then they replaced on His holy head the crown of thorns which caused such deep wounds that His blood streamed down, filling His eyes and His ears and matting His whole beard.

  When the first nail was driven into Him, through the shock of that first blow I lost consciousness and fell down as though dead. Everything turned black before my eyes. My hands began to tremble. And my anguish was so bitter that I could not look up again until He was completely attached to the cross.

  When I came to myself and arose again, I saw my Son hanging crucified in misery. And I, His deeply grieving Mother, felt such a shock through and through my whole being that I could hardly stand.

  I also heard men saying to one another that my Son was a robber, others that He was a liar, and others that no one deserved death more than my Son, and when I heard such words my grief was renewed.

  Now the crown of thorns, which covered half of His forehead, was pressing down onto His head so strongly that His blood was running down over His face and filling His eyes, hair, and beard. His whole head seemed to be nothing but one stream of blood, and in order to see me, as I stood by the cross, He had to press the blood away from His eyes by contracting His lids and brows.

  Because I was very close to Him during His Passion and did not allow myself to be separated from Him, for I stood right next to His cross, and because the nearer something is to the heart the keener is its stab, so His suffering was more painful to me than to others. And when He looked down at me from the cross, and I looked up at Him, tears streamed from my eyes like blood from veins. And when He saw me so overwhelmed with grief, my sorrow made Him suffer so much that all the pains which He felt from His wounds were surpassed by the sight of the grief in which He beheld me. Therefore I boldly assert that His suffering became my suffering, because His heart was mine. And just as Adam and Eve sold the world for an apple, so in a certain sense my Son and I redeemed the world with one Heart.

  While He was hanging there, bleeding and pierced with nails, He had compassion for my suffering as I stood near Him, sobbing. With His blood-filled eyes He looked down at John and commended me to his care.

  Then after He had entrusted me to the care of His Beloved Disciple, He saw me and His friends weeping inconsolably, and from the depths of His Heart He cried out in an overpowering voice, raising His head and His tear-filled eyes toward heaven:

  “My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me?”

  I was never able to forget that cry until my Assumption into heaven. And yet He uttered it more out of compassion for me than because of His own suffering.

  Then His eyes appeared half dead, His cheeks sunken in, and His features grief stricken. His mouth was open and His tongue was covered with blood. His abdomen had fallen in toward His spine and seemed to have collapsed. His whole body was pale and weakened from continuous loss of blood. His hands and feet were stretched out in the cruelest way, drawn and forced by the nails into the shape of the cross. His beard and hair were all clotted with blood.

  While He was hanging there so torn and livid, only His heart was still vigorous, for it was of the best and strongest quality. At His birth He had acquired from my flesh an extraordinarily pure body and an excellent constitution. His skin was so fine and delicate that the slightest blow caused the blood to flow at once. And His blood was so red that it could be seen coursing under His clear skin.

  And because His constitution was so very excellent, now death struggled fiercely with life in His pierced body. Alternately the pain rose from His torn limbs and nerves toward His heart, which was still strong and undamaged, causing Him indescribable torture, and then the pains would flow back from His heart into His limbs and thus prolong the agony of His death.

  And yet, though He was in the midst of such suffering, when He looked down at His weeping friends, who, rather than see Him suffer thus, would have wished to undergo the same pains themselves, the sorrow which the suffering of His friends caused Him was far greater than all the bitter pain which He had to endure in His body and His heart, for He loved them tenderly.

  Then in the excessive anguish of His humanity He cried to His Father:

  “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit!”

  When I, His Most Sorrowful Mother heard these words, in my keen grief of heart all my limbs trembled—and indeed as often as I later thought of that cry, I could hear it again in my ears.

  Then the color of death came over those parts of His body that were not covered with blood. His cheeks hung down over His teeth. His ribs were extended and could be counted. His nose became pointed and thin.

  Now as death was near and His heart was breaking from the intensity of His suffering, His whole body quivered. His head rose slightly and then sank down again. His half-closed eyes opened partly. His mouth fell open, and we could see His tongue all covered with blood.

  Then His hands shrank back a little from the nail holes, and His feet bore most of the weight of His body. His fingers and arms, which had been convulsively contracted, straightened out, and His back pressed against the Cross. Finally His head dropped, and His beard rested on His chest.

  Then my hands became numb. Darkness appeared before my eyes. My face turned as white as a corpse. My ears could no longer hear, and I could not utter a word. My feet gave way. And I sank to the ground.

  But when I arose again and saw my Son more despised than a person afflicted with leprosy, I directed my will completely toward Him. Then I fully understood that everything had happened in accordance with His Will and that it could not have happened unless He had permitted it. And I thanked Him for everything. A certain joy was even mingled with my grief, for I perceived how He, who had never sinned, had willed to suffer so much for sinners, out of His great love.

  Now His half closed eyes were turned downward, and His already dead body hung down. His knees had bent in one direction, and His feet had twisted around the nails in the other direction as on a hinge.

  Then some p
ersons who were present said in a mocking way:

  “Mary, your Son is dead now.”

  Others, who were more considerate, said:

  “Woman, now the agony of your Son has come to an end in eternal glory.”

  And still others said:

  “Though He is dead, He will rise again!”

  And while they were saying this, a man came up and drove a spear so forcefully into His side that it almost came out on the other side. And as soon as he drew it out, its point was all red with blood. The Heart of my beloved Son was so violently and mercilessly pierced that the spear split His Heart in two.

  When I saw that my Son’s Heart had been stabbed through, I felt that my own heart was likewise pierced, and it was a wonder that it did not break.