A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Near the cross of Jesus, there stood his mother. His mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. Seeing his mother there with a disciple whom he loved, Jesus said to his mother, woman, there is your son. In turn, he said to the disciple, there is your mother.
From that hour onward, the disciple took Mary into his care. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise the lord Jesus Christ. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
I never shall forget the Ober Amigal passion play, which I saw in 1934. And one of the things about it that I remember most vividly, which is because it had so much meaning, for me at least, was the way you treated our blessed mother. The picture presented, the image presented by the plate at that time, was a lady who was completely immersed in the situation, who had an understanding of it all, and yet who was not unbalanced by any of it. This phrase, she stood by the cross of Jesus, is significant. She didn't weep, she didn't moan, she didn't cringe, she didn't slump, she didn't fall in a faint.
Mary stood by the cross of her son. Of course, volumes, literally, libraries have been written about Mary and what she knew and what she didn't know and how much how conscious she was of all that was going on or how much lack of understanding she had of all that was going on. Well, of course, this is pure fiction. You can write volumes, you know, on that kind of thing. Who knows?
The basic knowledge we have comes from the four gospels. And we are told that Mary stood by the cross of Jesus, and that on that cross, our lord gave entrusted his mother to John and told John to look after her. There's nothing said about how they felt or how or how much they knew or how great their understanding of the situation was, but there are two things perfectly clear. First is we're we're told that Mary stood by the cross of her son. And secondly, that in a very calm manner, our lord said, John, just look after her for me.
And he turned to his mother and said, here's your son now. Of course, there it's not a coincidence that this feast comes after the triumph of the cross. It's no coincidence either that we should apply this most carefully to ourselves. Because Mary, without any equivocation, is one of us, except for this matter of original sin. She was 100% human and nothing more and nothing less.
She is exactly one of us in every single way that a human being is human. And so that it's perfectly reasonable to assume that Mary had emotions no matter what her understanding was. She was there. She stood by the cross of her son, Jesus Christ. She didn't lean on it.
She didn't droop over Saint John, or at least we're not told that she was. All we're told is that Mary stood by the cross of Jesus. And that's a lot for a mother to stand by the electric chair where her son is being electrocuted, or standing on the gallows when the sheriff pulls the the trap rope, or stands by the firing squad. That's a lot for a mother to stand by the cross of her son. And we're told that Mary stood by the cross.
I often think about this matter of the cross and suffering. As you know, this matter of suffering is just one facet of the great problem of evil in the world, and it's a real problem. And anybody with any sense has to admit that. That how do we handle it? How do we handle You know, when we talk about handling evil, there are plenty of people who can't handle goodness either.
There are plenty of people who are destroyed by success, and there are plenty of people who are destroyed by failure. That's something we ought to keep in mind too. But the fact is that in life we are more impressed by the hard, the difficult, the tragic things, the disappointments, the failures, than we are by successes. You get a couple of kids who come home from summer camp, and they're going to tell you about their yes. So what happened what happened in the camp?
You will hear the worst stories of what happened on a certain night where we almost drowned, another time when when we almost burned up, and and another time when we almost lost the boat in a storm on the lake. You'd say, ye, gods. Didn't anything else happen but those things? You get in it with a a bunch of sailors who've been sailing for twenty five years. To hear them talk, all they ever did was to escape a reef or escape a storm.
You see, somehow or other, these are the things that come to the surface. And how do we deal with them? Do we go and follow a Judas and throw a rope over a tree or what? Or do we say it that it's all illusion? Or how do you deal with it?
How do you make sense? And above all, you see, how do you make sense of all of this when you admit there's a benevolent, omnipotent God? See, there's where the crunch comes. And if any of you saw that masterpiece the other night on TV called Monastery, this was the great problem of some of those monks. How do you reconcile the problem of evil in this life with the existence of a benevolent, all powerful God?
How do you do it? And this of course, this has been tossed around down the centuries. Everybody and every person who's given any thought to life has had to face up to this problem. What is the problem of evil? How do we face up to it?
Even in my own person, I see the good and approve it and do the opposite. That's an ancient Roman poet, not a Christian, who said that. Saint Paul says, the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. That's right in my own person. How do we how do we deal with all this?
The answer is Jesus Christ. Far as I know, the there is no other answer to it. And he told us he showed us the way. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And you see, he died on the cross, and Mary stood by the cross of her son.
In the name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen.