WOMEN WATCHING THE PASSION FROM A DISTANCE
by Mother Martha Driscoll, OCSO
“A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women
who were beating their breasts and wailing for him.
But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children.”
—Luke 23:27-28
“[When Jesus died}, there were also women looking on from a distance;
among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.
These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.”
Mark 15:40-41 (cf. Matthew 27:55)
Meditation
The women followed at a distance, but their hearts were closer to Jesus than were the hearts of the violent men around him…The men inflicted the suffering without thinking or feeling. It was the best solution to a political problem. The women wept and suffered, feeling one with the flailed flesh of their Lord and Master. They had no voice in the proceeding, but their hearts cried out: This isn’t possible. How can it be? Stop it, stop it! Let him go! Look what you’ve done to him! Isn’t it enough? This is inhuman…
The women were powerless, but they were strong. Although aghast at the brutality they witnessed…their very unimportance made them almost invisible and enabled them to find their way through the crowd, to meet Jesus as he passed by, to have a fleeting moment of contact. When Jesus saw them, his heart went out to them. “Do not weep for me. Rather suffer with me in my hour. Let your weeping of revulsion turn into weeping of compassion. Suffer with me for all your people, for your descendants, as well as for the whole world. If you weep, weep for them.”
They were taken aback at his words, confused…Jesus did not want to be the object of their pity…He was accepting humankind’s refusal of God, its need to kill God, to do away with him.
What could they do? They had no role to play except as onlookers, and that gave them the grace to be “inlookers,” able to see the depths of what was happening. They saw beyond the outward violence of a group of people. They realized that their own hearts were involved in the drama of Jesus’ death. All were responsible; all should weep and be wept for…
They stayed until it was over, until all the others had left. They remained at a distance as Jesus’ body was taken down and laid in Mary’s arms…They stifled their cries and watched in reverent silence as Mary silently caressed and offered to God the bloody remains of her crucified son. They followed at a distance as Jesus was…hastily wrapped in a shroud, and laid in the cold ground just as darkness fell over the earth. They watched and prayed and witnessed it all.
Prayer
Jesus, you were silent before your judges, torturers, and executioners, but you spoke to the women who wept for you. You gave them the Word of salvation for them and their children’s children. We are those children. We, too, want to weep with you in horror at the hatred of the world, which has its roots in every human heart—including our own hearts. Our weeping hearts are not innocent. We play our part in the sin of the world: every movement of anger, selfishness, jealousy and conceit strengthens the axis of evil in the world…Grant us to participate in your free sacrifice of love and forgiveness for the salvation of the world. Amen.
Excerpt from Reading Between the Lines of the Gospel, copyright © 2006 . Used with permission of Liguori Publications, Liguori, MO 63057. 1-800-325-9521
www.liguori.org
