Photo by Reuters / Stephen Hird
We gratefully remember you, Jesus,
because your life and death teach us how to live as your disciples.
Your dead body, Jesus, is removed from the cross by devoted friends with the aid of Roman soldiers and placed in the arms of your grief-stricken mother. There are no words of condolence to complement the moment.
Only poetry comes close to the sentiment of this tender but pitiable scene. From the pen of Vladimir Nabokov:
Night falls. He has been executed.
From Golgotha the crowd descends and winds
between the olive trees like a slow serpent;
and mothers watch as
John downhill
into the mist, with urgent words,
escorts gray, haggard Mary.
