The Fourth Sorrow: the Carrying of the Cross

“A large number of people followed Jesus, among them many women who were mourning and lamenting over him.” (Luke 23:27)

Meditation: Accompaniment

In the Fourth Sorrow, the faithful consider the Virgin’s anguish when she saw her son struggling under the weight of the cross, as he undertook the painful journey through Jerusalem to Calvary.

St Luke’s gospel tells us that as he carried his cross, “a large number of people followed Jesus” to his place of execution (Luke 23:27). It makes sense that his mother would be among this group. Otherwise, how would she have known where to be present for his death, as she surely was? As was her custom, she would already have been in Jerusalem for the Passover (Luke 2:41-42). 

In Isaiah’s prophetic portrait of the sufferings of Christ, we read of how the people would witness a disfigured, despised, bruised, humiliated and anguished figure being led away to his death (Isaiah 52:13–53:12).

As the procession made its way through the streets, this must have been a terrible sight for Our Lady. As she witnessed her Son in this terrible state — lacerated, exhausted and bleeding — her grief must have been almost unbearable. 

The gospel describes the great mourning and weeping of the mothers in the crowd over his forthcoming death. It’s not hard to imagine his own mother among this group, accompanying him on his last journey and shedding tears along with them. Tradition has it that the two had a moment of encounter along the way. In those precious minutes, how must she have felt, seeing the child she had once held in her arms, now scarcely recognisable beneath his wounds?

Pope St John Paul II said: “Mary meets her Son along the way of the Cross. His Cross becomes her Cross, his humiliation is her humiliation, the public scorn is on her shoulders. This is the way things are. So it must seem to the people around her, and this is how her own heart reacts: “And a sword will pierce through your soul also” (Luke 2:35). The words spoken when Jesus was forty days old are now fulfilled. They are now completely fulfilled. And so, pierced by that invisible sword, Mary sets out towards her Son’s Calvary, her own Calvary.” 

He went on: “Christian devotion represents her with this sword penetrating her heart, in paintings and sculpture. Mother of sorrows! “You who shared his suffering!”, say the faithful, who know in their hearts that the mystery of this suffering can be expressed in no other way. Although this pain is hers, striking deep in her maternal heart, the full truth of this suffering can be expressed only in terms of a shared suffering – ‘com-passion’. That word is part of the mystery; it expresses in some way her unity with the suffering of her Son.”

In this sculpted scene by John Skelton, we see the Virgin and Christ having a silent moment of connection during those tragic last steps to Calvary.

Prayer:
O Sorrowful Mother, amid the mourning of the crowd, you saw your wounded Son forced to carry the heavy burden of the cross. Through the afflicted tenderness of your compassionate heart, obtain for me the grace to also bear with patience the painful sorrows of this life. Amen.

Contemplate the full image below, or move to the Fifth Sorrow>