Station VIII Jesus Console the Holy Women
Throughout His earthly ministry, we read in scripture, there were women who followed Jesus ad took care of Him. (Remember May and Martha, for example?)
Pope Benedict points out that all four of the gospel writers discuss the presence of women at the foot of the Cross. Mark s]writes, for example, “There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered to him and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.” (15:40-41)
Referring to these women, Pope Benedict cities the prophet Zechariah: They shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weeps bitterly over him, as one weeps over firstborn.” (12:10)
These faithful women were not just with Jesus at His crucifixion. Luke say that as Jesus made His painful way to Calvary, “...there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, But weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” In other word, Bible commentators tell us, Jesus is comforting while at the same time warning the women. He is saying that there is still time for the people to repent and accept their Messiah, but if they do not, a terrible tragedy is coming. The commentators believe Jesus was referring to what happened to Jerusalem just a few years after Jesus died. In 70A.D. Jerusalem was destroyed by siege, war, and fire, and the people suffered horribly. And this destruction, the commentators add, prefigures the judgement of all nations at the end of times.
