Lament and the evening of Good Friday

During Lent I read Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is Our Wound - Contemplative listening to a noisy world.  It is a beautiful and insightful read. There were a number of passages that made a particular impression on me, including this one in a chapter on Lament:
An artist told me in conversation that he had visited a convent and talked with one of the sisters there about what Mary, mother of Jesus, would have done on the evening of Good Friday. They imagined together that she would have gone to visit the mother of Judas. He painted this scene: two women, two uncomforted mothers, sitting talking together about their terrible, terrible day. The imagined scene of these two mothers sitting together after the death of their sons was reminiscent of another meeting, this time not of grieving but of expectant mothers before - the visit of a younger Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. If Elizabeth had lived to see her own son John the Baptist executed, the three would have had much to share on that first Good Friday: the uncomforted mothers of sons at the heart of the story of salvation.

Comments

Jeul said…
I hate to think of poor Mary after watching Jesus be executed. I'm a mother myself and couldn't imagine. It puts an interesting spin on an old story though, neat perspective.

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