As Jesus was dying, the Gospels say that Mary, his mother, stood under the cross. What was she doing while standing there?
Ron Rolheiser, OMI
STANDING UNDER THE CROSS
On the surface, it seems she wasn’t doing anything at all: She wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t trying to stop the crucifixion, and she wasn’t even trying to protest its unfairness or plead Jesus’ innocence. She was silent, seemingly passive, overtly doing nothing. But, at a deeper level, she was doing all that can be done in this kind of situation, she was standing inside of it, in strength, refusing to give back in kind, resisting in an much deeper way.
Mary couldn’t stop the crucifixion (sometimes darkness has its hour) but she could stop some of the hatred, bitterness, jealousy, heartlessness, and anger that caused it and which surround it. And she helped stop these by refusing to give back in kind, by transforming rather than transmitting them.
That’s not easy to do. Most everything inside us demands justice, screams for it, and refuses to remain silent in the presence of injustice. There are times too when things have gone so far that shouts and protests are no longer helpful, darkness is going to have its hour come what may and all we can do is to stand under the cross and help eat its bitterness by refusing to conduct its energy. In those situations, like Mary, we have to say: “I can’t stop this crucifixion, but I can stop some of the hatred, bitterness, jealousy, brute-heartlessness, and darkness that surround it. I can’t stop this, but I will not conduct its hatred.”
Sometimes the blind, wounded forces of jealousy, bitterness, violence, and sin cannot, for that moment, be stopped. But, like Mary under the cross, we are asked to “stand” under them, not in passivity and weakness, but in strength, knowing that we can’t stop the crucifixion but we can help stop some of the hatred, anger, and bitterness that surrounds it.
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