by Cherie Taylor Pedersen

And what of the Mother
watching as He rode into Jerusalem that day?
Did she know what lay ahead?
Had He prepared her for the grief that was coming,
a grief unique to her?
Yes, He had His followers,
devoted disciples,
But there was only the one Mother.
One woman had labored in pain to give Him life
And now she must labor in pain yet again,
These pains more searing than the last,
These white hot pains of bearing witness to suffering
He did not deserve yet had accepted,
His mission almost at an end.

She, too, paid a price for the errors of mankind
by giving up this beloved Son
to the jeers and cruelty of those He’d come to save.
But who noticed her as He stumbled to the cross?
Who noticed her as His hands and feet received the glancing blows?
Who noticed her as His life blood trickled toward her feet?
Only He.
“Woman, behold thy son.”

And what of the other Mother,
the one watching from on High?
Did she succor Him in the Garden
Or stand invisible by the Father’s side
As the terrible Plan unfolded
knowing she, too, could not remove that bitter cup,
Of which she also partook.
How could she not?
And did she, too, withdraw,
As mothers sometimes must,
To let Him take those final solitary steps
toward Home,
and Her?

Oh mothers of sorrow,
wherever you are,
They know what it is to grieve
what you cannot change.
They know the tears,
the pleas for healing,
perhaps even more than that beloved Son
who bore it all.
Across the span of time there has always been
and will always be
Pietas
Mothers encircling their children
with the arms that first held them,
Heads bowed in supplication
for the peace He promised to bestow.

Cherie writes from her home in Pennsylvania. She is the mother of four grown children and eight grandchildren who continually teach her about joy and sorrow.