At last came the journey when she accompanied Jesus and his Apostles to Jerusalem for the Passover.  During Holy Week she saw the undisguised glint of hatred and death in the eyes of his opponents as they tried to trap him in his speech.  Then, in the early hours of Good Friday it was John, most likely, who came to her with the news of his arrest, and at that moment she knew that the hour had come, and the sword long prophesied began relentlessly to enter her soul until she found herself witnessing the horror of the Crucifixion.

No words can describe her agony, and St John makes no attempt to do so.  He just states, with poignant simplicity, “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother…” and records how her Son entrusted her to his care (Jerusalem Bible, John 19:25-27).  One does not know how many pictures have been painted of that scene or of the sorrowing Mother holding in her arms the body of her dead and crucified Son.  But it is something which will haunt the minds of painters until the end of time.

For some 33 years, therefore, Mary was under great and protracted nervous strain, and when old Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled, it must have gone far beyond her worst fears and forebodings.  It has been truly said that Mary “without dying gained the palm of martyrdom” beneath the Cross of the Lord. (1)