A uniquely-formed Lenten devotion, Ecce Mater Tua – Behold, Your Mother is written from the perspective of a child who is witnessing the unspeakable anguish of the Mother of the Redeemer as she accompanies her only Son’s atrocious suffering. The child knows that he’s partially to blame for this torment and wishes somehow to console the grieving mother. Yet, she’s confidently resigned to God’s perfect plan, and so they climb Calvary together.
Allow yourself to become the devoted child who takes this Mother as his own, yearning to soothe her grief. You are that child – and she is your Mother. Ecce mater tua – behold, your Mother!
Excerpt:
Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.
Because by your Cross, you have redeemed the world.
The strokes of the executioner’s hammer pound right through my heart. Jesus must have swung his carpenter’s hammer countless times over the wood, forcing the nails to penetrate and thus create something beautiful. As he worked, did he ever think of the nails that would someday penetrate his own flesh and bind it against the wood? Blood spurts forth from the hands that have so often built, blessed, and healed. The executioner is Satan’s instrument of destruction. He doesn’t know he’s really creating something indescribably beautiful – our salvation.
Your hands have turned white because you’re pressing your palms together with such force. You feel the nails, too, don’t you? Still you make no protest. Mother, I can’t stand knowing that I’m to blame for this horrible scene. Please forgive me, pray for me. May I never do anything to make the executioner’s hammer swing again.
Ecce Mater Tua. Behold, your mother. Behold, your mother.
