Good Friday’s celebration of the Passion of the Lord gives us an opportunity to draw near to the crucified Jesus and gaze on him whose cruel suffering and ignominious death were the cause of our salvation.

We who desperately want to deny death, to act as if it will not happen to us, are invited and challenged to face the death of Jesus head-on. What’s more, if we want to be saved, we are told that we must follow him on the way of the cross.

This would be an impossible task for us except for two things: 1) the abundant grace of God and 2) the example and intercession of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and all the saints.

Mary stood before the cross and gazed with both great love and infinite sorrow at her divine Son as he endured the most unimaginable pain and suffering. The saints throughout the 2,000-year history of our Church have added their own suffering to that of our Lord and, in the process, “rejoiced in their sufferings” (Rom 5:3) and “completed what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24).

Today, we are invited to join the Blessed Virgin Mary, our mother, and all the saints (including those who betrayed and abandoned him but who later repented and followed him) on the pilgrim journey that is the via dolorosa (the way of sorrows). We are given the privilege of celebrating our Lord’s passion and death in anticipation of his triumphant resurrection on the third day. We are encouraged to weep bitter tears, to cry out for mercy for our sins, in order to prepare ourselves for the abundant joy that will one day be ours because “by his wounds, we have been healed” (Is 53:5).

Let us remember today the opening words of the “Stabat Mater,” the 12th-century hymn set to music by many different composers, which recalls Mary’s courage, fidelity, and incomparable love for her Son and Redeemer:

At the cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesus to the last. Through her heart, his sorrow sharing. All his bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword has passed.

On Good Friday, we have the opportunity to share Mary’s sorrow in a special way, and then to rejoice with her when our Lord triumphs over sin and death on Easter Sunday. If we can mingle our tears with those of our Blessed Mother, if we can share in her grief and mourning, then we can share in her joy.

More than three decades ago, Twenty-Third Publications published a booklet by Richard G. Furey titled Mary’s Way of the Cross. Adapted for use in Catholic parishes, Mary’s Way of the Cross provides a format for praying the traditional 14 Stations of the Cross from the perspective of Christ’s mother.

At the first station, for example, Mary is quoted as saying:

All around me they shouted, “Crucify him!” I wanted to plead with them to stop, but I knew that this had to be. So, I stood by and cried silently.

This is followed by a prayer addressed to Jesus that asks for his forgiveness for the times when we, too, have judged others unfairly. Then another verse from the “Stabat Mater” is offered:

Who on Christ’s dear Mother gazing, pierced by anguish so amazing, born of woman would not weep?

Toward the end, when Jesus is taken down from the cross at Station 13, Mary says, “A deep sorrow engulfed my being. Yet I also felt deep joy. Life had ended cruelly for my Son, but it had also brought life to all of us.”

Today, on this Good Friday, we are invited to imitate our Blessed Mother. She did not deny the horrors her Son endured. She did not pretend that the sword that pierced her heart was not painful or unjust. But she accepted it with a profound faith that God’s will must be done, and that in God’s wisdom, and in his good time, all things must work for the good.

Today’s celebration of the Passion of the Lord is a blessing for all of us who seek to follow Jesus. Today we can stand with our Mother at the foot of the cross.

With her, and with all the women and men who have gone before us, we can rejoice even as we weep bitter tears.

Because by his wounds, we have been healed.

—Daniel Conway