That Mary would be considered “a woman of grief and sorrows” was something that was foretold.
To begin with – from her teenage years onward – she was pegged, classified, stereotyped and labeled. It was to be the kind of label that would follow her all of her days. It was inescapable.
It was as if, she had a sword pierce through her heart at many times in her life.
She would have been abandoned by all of her friends, neighbors and village associates, for all intents and purposes she would be a shunned woman.
She was the talk of the village for years. They never forgot.
The time that her then 12 year old son got lost in Jerusalem and they finally found him in the Temple, Mary said, “Behold thy Father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” And as things turned out, that too, was but a shadow of things to come.
It is not hard to imagine her sorrowing again when her son left a good paying job in Sepphoris and Nazareth to risk his neck on some kind of foolish romantic quest.
You just do not leave family, home, hearth and your mother, to take off for places unknown…and yet, that was exactly what he did.
Part of her sorrow was that she loved him too much for himself – instead of for the wild and holy business – he thought he had been called to…
Another reason for her sorrow was because just like everyone else who was ever close to him – they just did not understand what he thought – he was doing.
When he came home for a visit, it was the thinking of everyone who loved him – that he was certifiably off his rocker.
His own – abandoned him. They desired that he be locked up – for his own well-being.
Perhaps his words sounded a little better in Aramaic – but when they were translated, they seemed harsh, bold and in your face.
Mary was not happy with him at all the time when wine was running out at a family wedding. Jesus showed up as an invited guest, bringing twelve more homeless men with him.
When his mother took him quietly aside, he shouted back at her – loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Woman, what have you to do with me?”
It was just another in a series of public spectacles with him acting out – for all to see and to witness. It was embarrassing.
On another occasion – he was told his mother, brothers and sisters were waiting for him outside – to which he replied, “Who is my mother?” “Who is my brother?”
Looking around at those who were with him, he cryptically said, you are my mother and my brothers and my sisters. And one more time, a mother’s heart broke a little more.
It seemed like at the end of his life, he tried to make nice, he tried to say he was sorry for the way he had treated – or mistreated her…
When he was cross-eyed with pain, sweating bullets and sweating out bodily fluids by the bucket-full – he attempted to focus his eyes on her – one last time…
He did not call her mother, but once again simply referred to her as woman.
He did not really say good-bye to her.
But it was as if he – here – at least he finally spoke “to the awful need” he must have always sensed lived deeply inside of her…
“Behold your son,” he said, indicating the disciple who was standing beside of her…
And then, to his own disciple he said, “Behold, your mother.”
That, was pretty much all he had to give to the woman who gave him life… Who carried him safely within her womb, protecting him and sheltering him as much as she could from the hateful and harmful words of other’s.
It wasn’t much – but it was something.
Mary learned a long time before this to cling on to what she could, to hold fast to her memories…and to continue to love her first born – as long as she herself had breath.
All these things and a million more, she pondered in her heart, as only a mother could do.