What I learned studying the Cross from the Eyes of Mary

Photo: My own; Hermleigh, TX

I spoke at a women's gathering today at a chapel in the middle of a cotton field. As the wind howled through the windows of the tiny space in West Texas fashion, I was tasked with leading the Stations of the Cross through the eyes of Mary (Mary's Way of the Cross) followed by my reflections. When preparing, I expected Mary's Way of the Cross to be something tender and prayerful. Something quietly Marian.

And although it is all of those things, what surprised me most is that it is also deeply confronting. This is not a devotion that lets us stay at a distance.

It does not ask us only to acknowledge Jesus’ pain, and it does not ask us only to admire Mary; it asks us to do something much more personal: it asks us to look at our own lives through the eyes of Mary at the foot of the Cross.

Photo: My own, Photo of fresco painting "Crucifixion with Saint Dominic" by Fra Angelico, 1440, Louvre Museum, Paris

And once you begin to do that, everything changes.

Because then the Passion is no longer just something that happened once, long ago. It becomes a light cast over your own life.

Over your sin and your love.

And suddenly the question is no longer just,

“What did Jesus endure?” The question becomes,

“How am I walking with Him now?”

The reflection opens by saying, "The Way of the Cross is really the way of every person’s life; Mary made that first Way of the Cross, and in these stations we see through her eyes what Jesus was going through and then try to make practical application to our own lives."

And that is such a deep invitation:

Not to stand outside suffering and analyze it.

Not to decorate it or pretend it is easy.

But to unite it - to bring it into the Cross of Christ.

And if I’m honest, I think that’s where many of us struggle.

Because we are often very willing to give God the beautiful parts; we give God glory and thanks for the parts that are wrapped up with a bow: the healed parts, the articulate parts, the parts that make sense.

But the raw parts? The parts where we are misunderstood, frustrated, ashamed, or still waiting?

Photo: My own, Toledo, Spain

Those are the parts we often hold back. We keep them to ourselves, hidden, until they are resolved. We try to be self sufficient in those parts. We try to fix them.

And yet those are often the very places where Christ is closest, and we can reap so much benefit in involving Him in those parts. Not just asking him to fix it, but resting in Him in the middle of those parts.

One of the strongest threads in this devotion is Mary’s steady surrender. Again and again, as she watches Jesus condemned, burdened, falling, stripped, nailed, and buried, she repeats that she knew “this had to be,” and so she followed or waited “silently.”

That silence matters. It matters for so many reasons, but it’s a stark contrast to our society right now, isn’t it?

Mary’s silence is not weakness or passivity or denial.

It is surrendered love.

It is the silence of a woman whose heart is breaking

and who still trusts God. I think many of us know that kind of silence.

Photo: My own; Statue of Virgin of Sorrows, Toledo, Spain

The kind where life keeps moving, but something inside you aches. The kind where you still have responsibilities: people to love and things to do, but inwardly you are carrying something heavy.

I went through the most difficult time in my personal life a few years ago, and the hardest part was juggling my day: waking up to the realization each morning that my life was unraveling followed by also caring for others in my profession in the medical field (in the midst of a pandemic when many were dying or very ill) to then return to a broken home while attempting to be the present, loving, and happy mother my children desperately needed. Inwardly I was carrying the weight of a situation that was consuming me to the point of panic attacks when I would finally get a moment to myself. But life kept moving, and I was expected to keep smiling and performing so as not to draw attention to the turmoil in my home. One day as I was walking to the hospital from my office across the street I felt like screaming “STOP!!!” in the middle of that road between the two. I was in an impossible situation but life around me just kept moving like nothing was happening.

Some of us know that in marriage.

Some in motherhood.

Some in friendship.

Some in grief.

Some in waiting.

Some in health struggles.

Some in old wounds.

Some in spiritual dryness.

And Mary does not tell us to stop feeling those things.

She shows us how to carry them without letting them separate us from God. That is so different from the world’s way.

The world often tells us to hide it, numb it, control it, dramatize it, explain it; but, Mary shows us another way.

Mary stays present in it. She teaches us how to abide. She follows Jesus in love, even when she cannot fix what is happening.

And I think one of the invitations for us is simply this: abide. Abide means to remain steadily present; to dwell without fleeing; to endure in love and trust.

Abide with Christ in the hard place.

Abide in prayer when prayer feels dry.

Abide in trust when the outcome is unclear.

Abide with tenderness when life makes it tempting to become hard and cynical.

Abide in obedience when obedience feels costly.

Abide.

Love often looks less dramatic than we imagine.

Often, holiness is not in the grand gesture. So often it is in the hidden yes.

In holding your tongue.

In choosing not to retaliate.

In offering the hurt instead of weaponizing it.

In doing the next right thing.

In remaining faithful in ordinary duties.

In refusing bitterness.

In choosing peace.

Photo: My own, Paris, France; candles lit while asking for intercessory prayer for each of our five children; notice Mary's peace

That is not small.

That is the Cross in daily life.

At the Fourth Station, when Mary meets Jesus, the reflection imagines their eyes meeting, and in His eyes she reads: “Courage! There is a purpose for this.” Then the prayer turns inward and asks forgiveness for the times we brood over inconveniences, become discouraged, and do not heed His call to courage.

I think a lot of women need that word. Courage.

(And I’m speaking from experience.)

And not because everything is easy. But because nothing united to Christ is wasted.

And that has become such an important lesson in my own life.

There have been seasons in my life where I desperately wanted God to explain Himself to me. I wanted clarity and relief. I NEEDED to know the plan. And instead, what He often gave me first was Himself. Not always answers, but presence. Not always immediate rescue, but grace to remain. And looking back, some of the places I most wanted out of were the very places where He was teaching me surrender.

The Cross asks us a different question than the world asks.

The world asks,

“How do I get out of this?”

The Cross asks,

“How can I endure this and it be united to Christ?”

How can this sorrow become prayer?

How can this inconvenience become offering?

How can this hidden sacrifice become love?

How can this disappointment become surrender?

How can this waiting become trust?

That is Marian spirituality.

That is not passivity; instead, it’s participation in Christ’s redemption.

But this devotion does something else too, and I think this is one reason it is so powerful:

It asks us to repent.

At the First Station, after Jesus is condemned, the prayer turns on the reader and asks: when I hold a grudge, when I judge others, do I not also cry out against Him?

Goodness, that is hard.

It means the Cross is something my sin has helped make necessary.

Photo: My own, Toledo, Spain

And that changes the tone completely.

Because then I cannot just stand there and say, “How terrible that Jesus suffered.” I also have to ask, “Lord, where am I not surrendering to You?”

At the Eighth Station, Jesus tells the women not to weep for Him but for themselves, and the prayer says they failed to see the connection between His suffering and their own conversion. It highlights how easy it is to notice the faults of others while rarely seeing our own need for pardon.

That is such a piercing examination for all of us: we can become very skilled at identifying what is broken around us.

We can talk about the culture and failures of others. The people who have hurt us.

But the Cross asks us:

What about your heart?

Your pride?

Your self-protection?

Your refusal to forgive?

Your tendency to strip others of dignity?

At the Tenth Station, the prayer confesses harming others by foolish talk and prejudice, and asks for help to see Christ in every person.

That line feels especially important for women, because our words are powerful.

We have a unique gift as women.

Our words can heal. They can dignify a person and steady a room. They can speak life.

But they can also wound.

And one of the most Marian things we can do

is let the Cross purify the way we speak,

the way we think about others,

the way we carry people in our hearts.

I think one of the Lord’s kindest mercies is that He doesn’t only comfort us at the Cross. He also corrects us there. He reveals the places where we are not yet free, not yet gentle, not yet surrendered. And that conviction is not rejection. It is mercy.

Another thing I love here that we can learn from is that

Mary’s sorrow is never self-enclosed.

She is not turned inward in a way that becomes bitter or theatrical. Her sorrow remains open to God. It remains receptive and obedient.

And that is such a challenge.

Because suffering can make us small if we let it. I let it in my own life for a bit. I closed off into what I called a “healing cocoon.” And parts of it were needed. My nervous system was shot. I became protective and defensive. I wasn’t incredibly obedient. I was closed off. I couldn’t be in crowds, I was paranoid, I even had to do grocery pickup.  Thank goodness for therapy, because as much as I hated it, I was able to slowly unroll out of that cocoon.

Sorrow can curve us inward, making us defensive and cynical. It can make us live in quiet grievance.

But Mary shows us another possibility.

That sorrow can deepen us

without hardening us.

That pain can purify us

without defining us.

That love for Christ can remain faithful

even in helplessness.

Photo: My own, Madrid, Spain

Another theme I want to lean into is sacrificial love.

At the Twelfth Station, after Jesus dies on the Cross, the prayer thanks Him for His sacrificial love and asks Him to teach us how to live for others.

That might be one of the simplest summaries of the Cross:

Teach me to live my life for others.

And women understand hidden self-gift in a particular way.

So much of a woman’s love is unseen.

It’s repetitive and often physically and emotionally costly. It’s ordinary:

Meals made.

Children comforted.

Bodies tired.

Parents cared for.

Homes tended.

Prayers whispered.

Respect offered.

Resentment surrendered.

Forgiveness chosen again.

Duties repeated without applause.

And one of the lies we can believe is that because those things are ordinary, they are somehow spiritually small.

But they are not small when united to Christ.

They are not invisible to God. They are not wasted.

The hidden, ordinary life becomes holy when it is offered in love. So much of our sanctification happens there.

Not in impressive moments.

But in daily fidelity.

Not in dramatic suffering.

But in the way we carry the cross of the ordinary.

The person who sanctifies us by being difficult.

The prayer that feels unanswered.

The season that feels buried.

The service that is unnoticed.

The wound that still aches.

All of that can be united to the Cross.

Photo: My own, Paris, France

And finally, thanks be to God, this devotion does not end in the tomb.

At the Fourteenth Station, when Jesus is laid in the tomb, Mary says she would “wait in faith” silently. Then the Fifteenth Station bursts open with resurrection: the emptiness is filled beyond belief because Christ has risen, and His love would stop at nothing less.

That is such a needed reminder.

Christianity is not only about carrying crosses.

It is about resurrection. We do not unite ourselves to the Cross because suffering is the goal; we unite ourselves to the Cross because love passes through death into life.

Some of us may feel today like we are in a Holy Saturday place:

The tomb is closed; the prayer is unanswered; the healing is incomplete. The future is hidden.

And all we can do is wait in faith.

Mary knows that place too.

And she teaches us how to wait

without despairing: how to remain open

without forcing the ending.

How to trust that God is still at work

even in apparent silence.

I think some of the deepest work God has done in me has happened in the waiting. Not when everything resolved quickly, but when I had to learn to trust Him before I could see what He was doing. Resurrection in my life did come in a big way; and not in the way I expected, but in real ways: peace where there had been turmoil, clarity where there had been confusion, tenderness where there had been hardness, deeper faith where there had been an abundance of fear. I can go on and on but we don’t have enough time.

So maybe the invitation today is very simple: Take your life as it actually is. Not the polished version. Not the version other people assume. Not the version you keep meaning to become.

Take your real life: you sorrow, your frustration, your fatigue, and your hidden sacrifices. Place all of it with Mary beneath the Cross.

Because that is what Mary does.

She does not flee the Cross.

She teaches us how to stand beneath it.

She teaches us how to let sorrow become surrender.

And she always leads us to Jesus.

So may we become women

who do not waste suffering,

who do not run from conviction,

who do not settle for shallow faith,

who know how to stay,

how to offer,

how to repent,

how to trust,

how to wait, and how to recognize resurrection when it comes.

May we become women who learn, through Mary, to unite everything to the Cross.