Mary’s suffering as Co-Redemptrix is intimately tied to her Motherhood of Christ and the Church by Michael Haynes for Life Site News
Mary’s suffering at the foot of the cross is born out of the very nature of her maternity, as she stands underneath her Son, uniting herself in His passion and death, for the salvation of souls.
As the hours pass on Good Friday afternoon, Christ’s painful journey to Calvary is complete. Nailed upon the cross, he looks down at the Woman, His mother, and in a penultimate act of His redemptive death He gives her to the Church, and the Church to Her. St. John writes: “When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son.”
This act is not merely symbolic, as some – in an attempt to downplay the role of Mary – would have us believe. The Mother of God is not an ‘extra’ or a mere passer-by watching this bloody crucifixion.
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She is an essential ‘character’ in the most profound drama that the world has ever seen. Indeed, this is the culmination of her role as Co-Redemptrix; a role that she assumed at the Annunciation when she uttered her fiat to the angel Gabriel; a role that is so completely intertwined with her role as Mother of God.
Mary is intimately united with Christ’s work of Redemption
At the moment of her Annunciation, the Fathers and theologians teach that Mary was aware of the sorrow and utmost pain that she was to endure. She was aware of the intimate role that she would play in accompanying Her Son in His redemptive suffering and death. To all this, she then said yes, not merely passively accepting, but actively willing all that God willed for her and her Divine Son.
From the instant of the Annunciation, her life became one devoted to the workings of the salvation, not motivated by visions of self-glory, but by acts of sacrificial love.
St. Alphonsus Ligouri portrays the meeting between the two on the road to Calvary in his Glories of Mary:
“At length they looked at each other. The Son wiped from his eyes the clotted blood, which, as it was revealed to St. Bridget, prevented Him from seeing, and looked at His Mother; and the Mother looked at her Son. Ah, looks of bitter grief, which as so many arrows, pierced through and through those two beautiful and loving souls.”
Now, standing resolutely beside the cross on Calvary, Mary unites herself with Christ as the final moments of the Passion drag out. Tradition teaches also that Mary was not overcome with grief so as to allow herself to swoon or faint, as some of the romantics have portrayed in art. Rather, she emptied herself of any consolation, filling herself with the pain of uniting herself consciously, wholeheartedly, and completely with Christ, in every moment of His Passion.
