Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

This scene in the Gospel has been depicted in art many times. For many people, especially mothers, it is a deeply emotional scene. But it also shows us something important about our faith.

One of the great challenges in the early Church was getting people to accept that God truly became man. There were people who did not want to believe that Jesus was truly human. They wanted to believe that it was somehow an appearance, that it had been faked. They were scandalized by the Crucifixion. God dying on a cross—that is difficult to accept.

And that heresy recurs in every age. There are always people who struggle to accept humanity and materiality. They do not want their bodies. They want everything to be spirit. For various reasons, they struggle with the material world and fall back on the idea that Jesus could not really have been man. Even today, people may not use those words, but they still believe that somehow his humanity was not what it appeared to be.

This scene speaks directly to that struggle. It shows us that his humanity is real, with all its consequences. Jesus is suffering. In the very next passage, he will die. Before him stand people who have been important in his life, including his mother and the beloved disciple. And one of his final acts is to make sure someone will take care of his mother.

This is more than a general expression of God’s love for humanity. It is a uniquely human expression of care for one’s mother, rooted in that unique relationship. In this moment, he does not arrange care for everyone who has been important in his life. He does not give a final lesson to humanity about how to live. He shows compassion to his mother.

That shows us how fully God has embraced humanity in the Incarnation. Jesus does not simply look like a man. He truly is a man, and he loves like one too. God loves everyone equally. But as a human being, Jesus has a unique relationship with his own mother, and we see that relationship here. He loves with both a divine love and a truly human love.

That should move us to embrace the material world, to embrace our own humanity, and to work to bring it to perfection.

At various times in life, we all face the temptation to reject our bodies. I think I have used this example before, but when you stub your toe on a table, it is hard to love your body in that moment. You hate it right then. And yet, it is good. And in everything we go through, there is a certain good, too.

God himself has redeemed our humanity. He has experienced it in his own flesh and made it more than it was before.

So when we struggle with living in this material world and the weight it places upon us, we need to remember that God himself had those struggles. He lived through them. He loved in the way he is calling us to love. He had the fullness of that human experience, and that is what makes it good.

That is why we must go out and try again. We must keep trying to bring this human life to perfection, despite how much we may struggle.