Fourth Station ~ Jesus Meets His Mother

Fourth Station

Fourth Station St. Emma Monastery

Jesus Meets His Mother

Seeing the first fall on the Via Crucis, His Mother sees the first fall on the path in Nazareth. Now as then she is silent; she holds back her hands as she did then. His will is her will. It was for this hour that she gave Him to the world, for this that He grew from the infant to the child, from the child to the man.

"Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?"
What is His Father's business but the business of love, the Father's love for mankind? "The Father so loved the world, that he gave up his only son to save the world."

The cause of Christ's suffering was His love for the world; the suffering He gave to His Mother was the gift of His own love. The increase of Christ's own grief because He must afflict her was an increase of Christ-love in the whole world- the suffering which is a communion of love.

The Way of the Cross Caryll Houselander