Mary in the Gospel of John: Part IX:
Our Lady at the Foot of The Cross – I
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
M ary is a participant in John’s Gospel both at the Marriage Feast of Cana (chapter 2) and at Calvary (chapter 19). These two episodes enclose the preaching ministry of Jesus: changing water into wine is the first of the signs that Jesus wrought and Calvary’s victory is the culmination of the proclamation of the Word made flesh. Like an antiphon which encloses and thereby permeates a responsorial psalm, so the Mother of Jesus envelops the ministry of Jesus.
Jesus and not Mary is of course the primary focus of both Cana and Calvary. John’s teaching on Our Lady is one of the sub-themes of these two episodes. In order, therefore, to place Our Lady’s role at Calvary in its proper context, this first installment on Mary at the Foot of the Cross will touch on two of the Christological dimensions which the Fourth Gospel stresses when narrating the death of Christ.
1. The Reverse of Eden
The awkward Latin words “recapitulatio” and “recirculatio” are used to indicate that the way the human race got itself into a knot is also the way that God unties the knot. It is a theme which goes back to Saint Justin and Saint Irenaeus and which finds its roots here in the Gospel of John. How did we get ourselves into such a mess? Through a man, Adam. Through a woman, Eve. Through a tree in the Garden of Eden. How will our merciful God pull us out of the mire? Through a man, the new Adam, Jesus. Through a woman, the New Eve, Mary. Through a new tree, the Cross in the Garden of Golgotha.
Adam and Eve sinned through disobedience, thereby forever blocking entry to the Tree of Life, guarded by angels and flaming swords (cf Gen 3). Jesus’ cry from the Cross is one of total obedience: “It is completed” (Jn 19:30). His food has always been to do the will of His Father. His death upon the Cross is his final loving, obedient surrender. As the old Adam turned away from God, for himself and his posterity, so the new Adam, Jesus, is totally one with Cod bringing healing and redemption to His people. As the old Eve cooperated in this original sin of rebellion against the Creator, so the new Eve, Mary, cooperates by her loving, obedient consent to the will of God.
The immensity of the sin of our first parents is seen by the exclusion from access to the Tree of Life: ‘He (Adam) must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some and live forever.’ So the Lord God expelled him from the garden of Eden . . . He banished the man and in front of the garden of Eden He posted the cherubs, and the flame of a flashing sword to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen 3:22-24). But through the obedient redemptive offering of the one Mediator Jesus and the loving consent of Mary, the way to the new Tree of Life—the Cross—is open. “To those who prove victorious, I will feed from the Tree of Life set in God’s Paradise” (Rev 2:14). As Adam and Eve plucked the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thereby subjected themselves to death, so we – their children – must pluck the fruit from the new Tree of Life so that we will never die. In the sixth chapter of John verse 50, Jesus tells us: “This is the bread come down from heaven so that a man may eat it and not die.” And again, “Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (v. 54).
Painting: Jesus Taken Dow from The Cross: Painter Dierk Bouts (1410 – 1475): The painting is currently on display at the Louvre, Paris, France
Mary in the Gospel of John
The Queen presents a series of articles of Mary in the Gospel of John.
In order, therefore, to place Our Lady’s role at Calvary in its proper context, this first installment on Mary at the Foot of the Cross will touch on two of the Christological dimensions which the Fourth Gospel stresses when narrating the death of Christ: The Reverse of Eden and Sacramental Life.
We must, then, reverently approach the new Tree of Life and pluck its fruit and consume it. Its fruit? The Lord Who hangs upon the Tree. Jesus, whose once and for all offering is made contemporaneous with us in every Mass, is the bread and the wine of Life, for it is the very Body and Blood of our Redeemer.
The scene of Calvary is then the reversal of the scene in Eden. Through a man, a woman and a tree, the death of sin came into this world; through Jesus, Mary and The Cross, eternal Life is offered to all. Through the disobedience of eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, original sin is committed. Through the obedience of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Lord in the Eucharist, we rise to eternal life.
2. Sacramental Life
“When (the soldiers) came to Jesus they found he was already dead and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance. And immediately there came out blood and water” (Jn 19:33-34).
From the divine side of Christ come the sacraments of the Church, the water of regeneration, Baptism, and the Blood of the Eucharist. Through Baptism we are born into Christ Jesus and through the Eucharist we are nourished in the divine life. It can be said then that the Church is born from the side of Christ as Eve was born from the side of Adam. The new Adam gives birth to the redeemed – the Church – through Baptism, so that gazing at us He can exclaim with new meaning the words of the old Adam: “This is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh!” (Gen 2:23).
The Crucifixion as narrated by John evidently has profound, mystical meaning. Saint Louis de Montfort in a certain sense refers to this truth by telling us that the Crucified Christ is Wisdom: “Wisdom is the Cross and the Cross is Wisdom” (LEW 180). Wisdom in the Old Testament is portrayed in the Book of Proverbs as a woman who built her house, mixed her wine and set her table (cf Prov 9:1-4). And Lady Wisdom cries out: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed” (Prov 9:5). Jesus Crucified, the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom, is the fulfillment of the Wisdom of the Old Testament. He offers His Body as Bread, His Blood as Wine. He prepares a table for us in the sight of our foes. And the Eucharistic table is Himself, the new Adam, who is the fruit we consume so that we may have everlasting life.
