Jesus dies on the Cross
The figures gathered around the Cross are placed as tradition has it: Mary gazing up at her Son, John with eyes cast down. Mary Magdalene kneels between them, not now in penitence, but in abject grief and despair. Nowhere in Scripture however, is the woman from Magdala depicted as the penitent woman of later tradition. Rather, since her town is named, she is more likely to be a woman of substance, listed by Luke it seems, as one of those providing for Jesus from their own resources. Whatever the truth, she is portrayed as staying with him to the end. It is from the Cross that Jesus gives his mother into John’s keeping, and him, along with us, into hers. Again, no flower appears.
As we leave this Station we might note that the “backyard blitz” that shaped the Sacred Garden involved the removal of a large fowl yard at this point, which in former years provided both Monastery and Retreat Centre with a constant supply of eggs and poultry.
