John 19:27: The Disciple Welcomes Mary

Beloved disciple

Lectio Divina on John 19:27

"The disciple took her into his home".
(Jn 19,27).

Explore the deep spiritual significance of the verse in John 19:27, “The disciple took her into his house.” Discover how this event symbolizes Mary's mission as a universal mother and its relevance to the faithful today.

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The Taking in His House: Understanding the Spiritual Meaning of John 19:27

Therefore they said among themselves, "Let us not tear it up, but cast lots for whom it belongs." Thus the Scripture was fulfilled: "They divided my garments among themselves, and cast lots on my tunic." And the soldiers did just that. His mother, his mother's sister, Mary the son of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene stood by the cross of Jesus. Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, and said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!"

And from that moment the disciple took her into his home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had now been accomplished, said to fulfill the Scripture, "I thirst." There was a jar full of vinegar there; So they placed a sponge soaked in vinegar on top of a reed and put it close to his mouth. And after receiving the vinegar, Jesus said, "It is finished!" And, bowing his head, he expired."
(Jn 19:25-30).

The evangelist, before focusing attention on Jesus' mother and "the disciple whom he loved" in a scene with solemn and moving accents, describes the division of Christ's garments and the drawing of lots for his tunic by the four soldiers who had crucified him. A small Greek particle (mén = while) placed at the end of the passage featuring the soldiers (cf. Jn 19:24), usually neglected by translators, makes it clear that the scene of the tunic and the subsequent scene of the mother are contemporary.

As death approaches, from the height of the cross Jesus is about to pronounce important, decisive words, the last: as a solemn testament for humanity, the greatest treasure of his life. The Son of God is not worried about himself, he is not focused on his pains; The atrocious torments of the Passion and Crucifixion do not close him in on himself. He is about to offer himself as a sacrifice for all (cf. Lk 22:19-20), cannot fail to think of the multitude of those who hope in him.
(cf. Mk 14:24).

In the first of his words he gives men the great promise of forgiveness (cf. Lk 23:34), in the second he opens wide the doors of the kingdom of heaven to an evildoer hanging like him on the scaffold (cf. Lk 23:43), as if to guarantee that no one is excluded from the embrace of love that emanates from the power of his cross.

Jesus cannot expire without having fulfilled the Father's will to the end, without first "all things" being fulfilled (Jn 19:30). He has yet to give the most beautiful gift to humanity. Naked on the cross, detached from everything, hanging between heaven and earth, he no longer possesses anything but a mother, his mother Mary, and prepares to give her to us as the most precious and dearest possession. Prepared by the eternal wisdom of the Father to give the only-begotten Son the body of flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit, now, according to the Father's plan of love, Mary is offered to us as a mother on the Cross by the Son in the Spirit, to prolong upon redeemed humanity the same maternal and caring solicitude that she poured out in the fullness of time on the fruit of her womb.

John transmits to us the third great fateful word of Jesus on the cross and with psychological depth, he describes it in conjunction with the division of the garments and the drawing of lots for the precious "priestly" tunic of Christ because it is "seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom" (Jn 19:23). Without specifying whothe evangelist suggests that that tunic was the work of Jesus' mother. Precisely for this reason, the draw arouses in the mind of the condemned person those tender affective memories that push him to fix his attention on the group of friends present at the foot of the cross.

"By now the crowd of curious people has moved away and most of the enemies have left. Only the soldiers on guard and the small group of faithful remain. Small group. The apostles fled. Peter himself, out of fear or more likely out of shame for his betrayal, is not here. To the dishonor of the men, the group is made up of women, except for the youngest of the large fishing clan, Giovanni, in whom love has prevailed over fears and doubts.

Now we know that that disciple, who has already entered the sphere of the love of the Father and the Son, will accept Jesus' command. The text says that "from that hour the disciple welcomed it to himself", that is, "as a precious possession". Let's explain this translation. We already know the word "now" and we know that here it marks the fulfilment of Jesus' messianic work, the fulfilment of the Scriptures also for Mary, the beginning for her of a new motherhood.

Well, the disciple makes the messianic event his own and welcomes Mary as his Mother. We have not translated the Greek expression as "he took her into his house," as so many do. Mary is not an object that is taken, she is a person who is welcomed, in the pregnant sense of the verb: it is a welcome full of affection and faith in the word of Jesus. "He welcomed it as a precious possession." This is the meaning reached by the most recent studies on evangelical expression. An article by the scholar Ignace de la Potterie bears this beautiful title: "From that order the disciple welcomed her into his intimacy". It tells all the affection with which the disciple whom Jesus loved obeyed his Master.

Others, like St. Ambrose, speak of the "spiritual goods" received as an inheritance from Jesus, and among these is his Mother. Charles Journet understood these Gospel words in the same way when he says: "He took her (we say with de La Potterie: he welcomed her) in his intimacy, in his interior life, in his life of faith. This interiority of the disciple is nothing other than his willingness to open himself in faith to Jesus' last words and to carry out his spiritual testament by becoming the son of Jesus' mother, welcoming her as his Mother in his life as a disciple: Jesus' mother, henceforth, is also his mother."

This is our faith. We are not orphans. Next to the Father and the Son is Mary, and the Spirit who gathers us in perfect communion. In the Church we all continue to call her the "Mother of Jesus" and at the same time, we also call her "our Mother". The Church has a Marian face; it is Jesus who wants it and we, as faithful disciples to him, welcome her as his precious inheritance." What place does Mary of Nazareth occupy in our condition as lay faithful, religious and priests? Is it really true that we live in deep intimacy with the Mother of God?
Do we rely on you?
Do we feel it as a precious asset for our spiritual life or do we think it is a superfluous ornament?
So many evils attack us because we do not trust the words of Christ and do not obey his supreme command, we do not make room for Mary, we do not sincerely welcome her into our home. This is what Card. C. M. Martini, painting today's ecclesial situation with rapid but dense brushstrokes: "We suffer from a certain decrease in affective familiarity with Mary in the ecclesiastical elite. Not in the simple people, who go to Medjugorje or listen to Radio Maria every day, but in us priests, in the men and women religious, in the committed laity, in those who proceed in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.

We perceive the relationship between this cooling and the shortcomings, affective crises, emotional disorders that afflict the ecclesiastical elite today. With the consequence, more generally, of the diminishing of the "Marian" spirit in the Church; we probably all remember that Hans Urs von Balthasar emphasized the need to always combine the "Petrine principle" with the "Marian principle", meaning by "Marian principle" the spirit of welcome, openness, serenity, peace, optimism, availability, intuition, listening, deep affection. The opposite of this Marian spirit is bitterness, rigidity, impositions, lack of fluency, legalism, punctiliousness, harshness." The Servant of God Fr. Mariano da Torino, known and esteemed as the Capuchin "parish priest of the Italians" for the 17 years of assiduous presence on TV, repeated: "If we still have defects, if we are not saints, this depends on the fact that we do not love the Immaculate Virgin enough."

Could each one of us say of Mary "seat of Wisdom", what the disciple said of Wisdom in the Old Testament: "I have therefore decided to take her as a companion in my life, knowing that she will be my counsellor of good and comfort in my worries and in my sorrow... It knows what is pleasing in your sight and what is in accordance with your decrees."
(Wis 8:9, 9:9). Mary, our mother, life companion and incomparable counselor, knows what God's desires are for us. Those who live in her intimacy and learn to confide in her, listen to her and imitate her in all things, those who live in union with her and allow themselves to be guided by her maternal presence, advance decisively in God's love, live under the action of the Holy Spirit, and are formed in the image of the new man (cf. Eph 4:23-24) and becomes a source of life and grace for all.

At the center of the group is the mother of the dying man, Mary, who has three other women next to her, if we follow the interpretation that today's exegetes prefer, or two if we stick to the classical one. "Standing by the cross of Jesus," says the Evangelist, "were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene." We already know who the latter was: the woman from whom, as St. Luke says, seven demons had come out and certainly the same woman who, according to the evangelist himself, we saw drying Jesus' feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee. She is probably the sister of Lazarus, the resurrected one.

In ancient times, it was believed that his mother's sister and Mary of Cleophas were the same person, putting only a comma between the two indications. Today scholars prefer to think that this sister of his mother was the wife of Zebedee and mother of John and James the Elder, the Salomé mentioned by St. Mark, while the Mary of Cleophas (i.e. Mary wife of Cleophas) could bewhat St. Mark calls the mother of James the Younger and Joseph. But we are in the field of hypotheses.

We know that the small group stood near the cross. Perhaps Jesus himself would have signaled at that moment that they should approach because he had something important to say to them. It is not far-fetched because - as Lagrange writes - "no law prevented relatives from approaching the condemned: the soldiers defended the crosses against a possible coup de main or to prevent any form of riot; but they did not drive away the curious, nor the enemies, nor the friendly people". There was very little to fear from that group of four women and a boy. The soldiers themselves must have had compassion on this offender who, in the hour of truth, had so few supporters left.

We also know that they were close to the cross: and this "stavano" in Latin clearly tells us that they were standing, with great dignity... That Mary could have had some moments of despondency is part of her human condition. That she was supported by Giovanni is normal for a mother. But certainly, from the cross, Jesus did not see a woman outside himself. Although she was torn by grief, she was there, intrepid, ready to take on the tremendous inheritance that her son was about to entrust to her."

Jesus, nailed to the wood, was the first to turn to his mother, whom he looked at with immense affection. Mary is standing under the cross, in agony with her Son. Beside her, to support her in the terrible "hour", the faithful disciple, loved by Christ. "Woman, here is your son!"
(Jn 19:26).

It is not a question of Jesus' mere filial attention to his mother, of a just concern for her material future dictated by the desire to assure her of assistance and protection. Christ, at the heart of his saving work, intends to entrust to Mary the universal mission of being the mother of all brothers and sisters redeemed by his blood. As at Cana in Galilee, at the dawn of his public ministry, so on the Cross, at the culmination of his redemptive action, Jesus calls Mary a "woman" instead of a "mother" because he wants to place himself above family relationships and to consider Mary as the woman committed without limits of extension to the work of salvation.

From the day of the Incarnation of the eternal Word of the Father, Mary will continue to be called the Mother of God.
From the hour full of suffering of the immolation of her Son on Golgotha, she began to be invoked as the Mother of all believers, that is, of those who welcome Jesus in faith and become like him, following the example of the "disciple whom Jesus loved". "Every man who has become perfect no longer lives, but it is Christ who lives in him (cf. Gal 2:20); and since Christ lives in him, it is said to Mary: "Behold your son", that is, Christ"

To her, "Mother in the order of grace", Christ entrusts the totality of his disciples, but in their unrepeatable individuality: "Behold your son!" For a mother, children are not numbers; for Mary each of us, glimpsed in Christ, does not vanish into anonymity, is not faceless, nameless... Mary's maternal love is addressed to each child personally, she is interested in all the concrete details of life, she offers each one the certainty of being loved as if he were the only one who receives care andeffect.

Immediately after speaking to his mother, from the height of the cross, Jesus fixes his gaze on the disciple who is "there beside her" and orders him: "Behold your mother!" (Jn 19:27), not only so that he may take care of her and take her with him "into his own home", but above all so that he may introduce her into his intimacy, into his own affective experience.
"It is not enough for Mary to take on her new mission, it is necessary for the disciple to become aware of Mary's motherhood. This is what happens on Calvary, when Jesus, turning to the disciple, says to him: "Behold your mother". In saying this, Jesus reveals to him the mission to which he has called Mary and places him in front of his responsibilities.

"Let us remember," St. L. M. de Montfort repeats to us, "that Mary is the great and unique mold of God, capable of modeling living images of God, with little expense and little time. Whoever finds this mold and throws himself into it, is soon transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, which this mold represents naturally."

Those who love Mary and allow themselves to be humbly shaped by her, gradually take on her own spiritual features, her interior features, her admirable virtues. By mirroring himself in her, the Christian, the religious, the priest acquires the very beauty of Mary, a reflection of the eternal beauty that shines on the face of Christ. "Mary is a mirror for the Church in a twofold sense: first, because she reflects the light that she herself receives, as a mirror does with the light of the sun; second, because it is such that the Church can and must "look at herself" in her, that is, look at herself and confront herself in order to make herself beautiful in the eyes of her heavenly Spouse. In this case too, we are merely applying to Mary, in a more particular sense, what is said, in general, of the Word of God, namely, that she is a "mirror".
(cf. Jas 1:23).

In concrete terms, to say that Mary is a figure or mirror of the Church means that, after first considering a word, an attitude, or an event in the life of Our Lady, we will immediately ask ourselves: What does this mean for the Church and for each one of us? What must we do to put into practice what the Holy Spirit wanted to tell us through Mary? The most valid response on our part is not seen simply in devotion to Mary, but in imitation of Mary"

the woman of faith;

the woman of grace;

the woman of love.

... to imitate her virtues and with her, in her and through her, to follow Christ her Son and our Lord ever more closel.