Standing at the Foot of the Cross: A Mother's Courageous Witness by Jeff Callaway

Standing at the Foot of the Cross: A Mother's Courageous Witness

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

I am Mary of Nazareth. I am the Mother of God. And what I am about to tell you is the story of the day my soul was pierced by a sword, the day I learned what it means to love so completely that you would stand witness to the torture and death of the one you love most in all creation, and still—still—believe in the goodness of God.

They call me Blessed. They call me Holy. They whisper my name in cathedrals and say rosaries to my honor. But on that day, on Golgotha, I was none of these things in my own heart. I was simply a mother. A woman broken beyond measure. A witness to the most horrific and most beautiful moment in human history.

The Prophecy Fulfilled

Let me take you back, first, to the beginning of this terrible knowledge. When my Son was forty days old, I carried Him to the Temple in Jerusalem. He was so small, so perfect, so impossibly precious in my arms. His fingers wrapped around mine with a grip that seemed to contain all the tenderness of heaven. Joseph walked beside me, his hand protective on my shoulder, though we did not yet know what lay ahead.

An old man found us in the Temple—Simeon, a righteous and devout man filled with the Holy Spirit. He had been waiting his entire life to see the Messiah, and when he laid eyes on my infant Son, something ancient and prophetic stirred within him. He took Jesus into his arms, and his face became radiant with a light that seemed to come from another world entirely.

"Lord, now you are dismissing your servant in peace," he prayed, holding my baby as though he held all of creation. "For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples."

I felt it then—a flutter of joy mixed with something else. Something darker. Something that made my mother's heart suddenly anxious.

Then Simeon turned to me. His ancient eyes, so full of wisdom and sorrow, looked directly into mine. And he spoke words that would echo through every day of my life: "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too."

I held Jesus closer that day. I did not fully understand then what sword he meant. But I understood that my life would not be ordinary. I understood that this child, this precious gift, would be the cause of great suffering. Even then, even in that moment of joy at His dedication, I felt the shadow of the cross.

Now, thirty-three years later, standing on this barren hill outside Jerusalem, I understand completely. The sword has come. It is coming now. And it is piercing deeper than I ever imagined possible.

The Arrest and the Trial

The night before today, they came for Him. I was not there to see it—I was sleeping in a house in the city when the servants of the Sanhedrin came with torches and soldiers to drag my Son away in the darkness. But I heard the news quickly enough. Every moment of that endless night, I paced and I prayed. I did not sleep. Sleep seemed like a betrayal, an abandonment of vigil at a time when my Son needed the prayers of those who loved Him.

John came to me as the first light was breaking. His young face was ravaged with tears and fear. He told me everything—how the disciples had scattered like frightened birds, how Peter had denied even knowing my Son, how my beloved had been beaten by the temple guards, mocked and spat upon. As John spoke, I felt something dying inside me. Not my faith—no, my faith held firm—but something in my heart that was wholly tied to my Son's wellbeing.

"Where is He?" I demanded, already moving toward the door.

"They are taking Him to Pontius Pilate," John said, his voice breaking. "Mother, they mean to execute Him. They have accused Him of blasphemy."

The word "execute" did not seem real. It belonged to the world of criminals and rebels, not to my Son who had spent His life healing the sick and teaching love. And yet I knew, in the deepest part of my being, that John spoke truth. The religious authorities had always been threatened by my Son's message, by His authority that came not from their traditions but from God Himself.

I went immediately, with what few of us remained faithful—John, my sister, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, the woman my Son had freed from seven demons and loved with a tenderness that scandalized many. We made our way through the streets of Jerusalem to the palace of Pilate.

What I witnessed there—the mockery, the false accusations, the injustice—was a harbinger of what was to come. The crowd that surrounded my Son was transformed into something almost possessed. These were people He had healed. Some of them were people He had fed when He multiplied the loaves and fishes. Yet now they cried out for His blood as though demon-possessed.

Pilate—that weak and pathetic man—washed his hands of the decision, as though water could cleanse him of the blood he was about to spill. My Son stood before him with a dignity that seemed almost otherworldly. He did not defend Himself with rage or desperation. He simply stood in truth, and the truth condemned Him in the eyes of those who had chosen darkness over light.

"I find no case against Him," Pilate said, and for a moment I felt hope ignite in my chest. Perhaps this could still be stopped. Perhaps mercy could yet prevail.

But I had forgotten the depth of human cruelty. I had forgotten that fear makes people capable of anything. The crowd's anger swelled like a tidal wave, and Pilate, caring more for his own position than for justice, gave the order.

"Let Him be crucified."

Those words. Those terrible, final words. My knees nearly gave way, but John caught me. I heard Mary Magdalene weeping beside me. My sister gripped my arm. We were four women, helpless to stop what was about to unfold, but determined that we would not abandon Him. We would not be among the cowards who ran. We would bear witness. We would stand.

The Path of Suffering: The Way of the Cross

They forced Him to carry the cross Himself—the instrument of His own torture and death. As we made our way through the narrow streets toward Golgotha, I pushed through the crowd to see Him. My heart nearly shattered at what I beheld.

They had scourged Him before presenting Him to Pilate. His back was ribboned with wounds, each one a testament to the brutality of Roman soldiers who had no mercy, no hesitation, no humanity. The flesh hung in strips. Blood ran down His sides like crimson tears. I wanted to cry out, to throw myself at the soldiers, to beg them to stop. But John held me firm.

"You must be strong, Mother," he whispered, though his own voice was breaking. "He needs to know you are here. He needs to know you believe."

The cross He carried was enormous, made of rough wood that scraped and tore at His already wounded flesh. Each step was agony—I could see it in the way He moved, the way His body trembled under the weight. Sweat poured down His face, mixing with blood from the crown of thorns they had forced onto His head. Those thorns—driven deep into His scalp, drawing blood down His temples and cheeks.

At one point, He stumbled. The weight of the cross, combined with the torture His body had already endured, proved too much. He fell to His knees on the hard stone. The soldiers surrounding Him showed no mercy. They did not pause to allow Him to recover. They simply shouted at Him to get up, threatening Him with their whips.

I saw a man in the crowd—Simon of Cyrene, they called him—being forced to help carry the cross. Even this small mercy was tinged with cruelty, forced upon him, not offered with love. My Son accepted the help with grace, though I could see the shame in His eyes at being unable to bear His own burden. He had borne the burden of the sins of all humanity—how must it have felt to be unable to even carry the instrument of His death?

As we walked, women in the crowd—some I recognized as having been touched by His ministry—began to weep openly. My Son, even in His agony, could not ignore their suffering. He turned to them, and though His voice was hoarse and broken, He spoke with the authority and compassion that had always defined Him:

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover us.'"

Even now. Even carrying the cross to His death. Even beaten beyond recognition. He was thinking of others. He was offering prophecy and warning. He was still, in every moment, the Teacher, the Prophet, the Savior.

I felt something crystallize in my heart in that moment. This suffering was not meaningless. This was not the defeat of the God I had served my entire life. This was something far greater—something I was only beginning to comprehend. My Son was pouring out His life as a ransom for many. He was fulfilling the ancient prophecies. He was purchasing redemption with His own blood.

But knowing this did not ease the agony. A mother's heart does not think in theological terms when watching her son tortured. It thinks only: This is my baby. This is my precious one. And I cannot stop this.

Golgotha: The Place of the Skull

We arrived at the place they call Golgotha—the place of the skull—a desolate, barren hill outside the city where Rome carried out its executions. The ground was stained with the blood of countless victims. Crosses stood like sentinels of death. This was a place designed to break the human spirit, to demonstrate the absolute power of Rome over life and death.

Four soldiers began their work with the efficiency of men who had done this many times before. They offered my Son wine mixed with myrrh—a narcotic meant to dull the pain. He tasted it, but refused to drink. I understood then the depth of what He was choosing. He would endure this with complete consciousness. He would not escape into even the mercy of numbness.

They laid Him on the cross.

I cannot adequately describe what it is to watch your child laid upon an instrument of torture. Words fail. The human heart was not meant to bear such knowledge. And yet I bore it. I stood there and I watched.

They took His left arm and stretched it along the wooden beam. A soldier knelt beside Him, taking His palm and positioning it precisely over a hole in the wood. Another soldier approached carrying a nail—long, thick, made of iron, designed to pierce through flesh and bone without breaking.

I heard the hammer being raised.

And then the sound—a sound that will echo through eternity in my memory—the sound of the nail being driven through my Son's hand. The metal pierced through skin and muscle and sinew and bone. I heard the crunch of it. I heard my Son's body respond with an involuntary convulsion. A sound escaped His lips—not quite a scream, but something deeper, something more primal. The sound of a human body in extremis.

My own hand flew to my mouth. I thought I might scream, but no sound came. I was frozen in a moment of pure, white-hot agony that transcended anything I had ever known.

"Mother," John said urgently, gripping my shoulders. "Mother, look at me. Look at me, not at Him. You must be present but you must not break."

I forced my eyes to meet his. His young face was streaked with tears, but his eyes held a strength that seemed to come from somewhere beyond himself. He was right. My Son needed me to be strong. My breaking would be another wound upon Him.

But I could not stop watching. A mother cannot look away from her child's suffering, no matter how much mercy it might be to do so.

They drove the nail through His right hand with the same brutal efficiency. Then they moved to His feet. They bent His legs—an impossible angle given the position of the cross—and drove a single nail through both feet, pinning them to the wood below His body.

The cross was then lifted by ropes and dropped into a hole in the ground. The impact was catastrophic. His entire body wrenched. His shoulders dislocated slightly under the impossible strain. Every ligament, every tendon, every nerve screamed in protest. His legs, supporting His weight now in this unnatural position, began to tremble.

This was crucifixion. This was the instrument that Rome had perfected to extract the maximum suffering before death finally came.

The Hours of Agony

I moved as close as I could to the base of the cross. The soldiers did not stop me—I was simply an old woman, clearly no threat. They were too busy with their duties: gambling for my Son's garments, offering Him sour wine on a stick, keeping watch to ensure He did not somehow escape His fate.

His garments. Even in this moment of His greatest vulnerability, they were stealing from Him. The soldiers tore His tunic into four pieces—one for each of them—and then they cast lots for His seamless outer garment, the one that had been woven for Him with such love. I watched them gamble for it as though it were some prize, as though they were not simultaneously gambling away their own souls.

The pain on His face was beyond description. His eyes were starting to cloud, His breathing coming in shallow, agonized gasps. This is the terrible mathematics of crucifixion: in order to breathe, the condemned must push themselves up on their pierced feet, or pull themselves up by their pierced hands. Every breath purchased at an almost unimaginable price. Every moment of continued existence an act of will and agony combined.

I could see His body beginning to shut down. The loss of blood was significant. His skin was taking on a grayish pallor. His lips were swollen and cracked. His throat was dry—parched by pain and dehydration.

Mary Magdalene stood beside me, and I reached out and took her hand. This woman whom my Son had loved and healed and forgiven—she stood steadfast. Her tears fell like rain, but she did not turn away.

"He saved me," she whispered. "He pulled me back from darkness and gave me life. And now... now I can only stand here and watch Him suffer."

"We bear witness," I told her, though I was not certain I believed my own words. "We remain. This is what love demands."

My sister and Mary of Clopas stood nearby, their faces ravaged with grief. Four women. Four faithful witnesses. The male disciples had fled—all except John, who remained. Where was Peter, the rock upon which Jesus said He would build His Church? Where were the others who had walked with Him, eaten with Him, witnessed His miracles?

They had abandoned Him out of fear.

But we remained.

The sun climbed higher in the sky. The heat was merciless. I wondered if my Son was thirsty. Of course He was. His body was losing fluid through the wounds, through the labor of breathing in this impossible position. The very mechanics of crucifixion were designed to create unbearable thirst.

Around midday, the darkness came.

It was not natural darkness—the sun did not yet approach its setting. But a shadow fell across the land, and the sky began to darken as though the very heavens were in mourning. I had never seen anything like it. It was as though creation itself was weeping.

In that darkness, my Son cried out with a loud voice: "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The words are from the Psalms—the prayer of the ancient king David. But hearing them from my Son's lips, spoken in that voice of anguish, I felt as though the very heart of God was breaking. He was experiencing something that transcended physical pain. He was experiencing separation from the very source of His being. He was taking upon Himself the full weight of human sin, the complete rupture of relationship with God that sin creates.

This was not merely torture. This was redemptive suffering. This was the Lamb of God bearing the sins of the world.

John squeezed my hand. "Mother, do you understand what He is doing?"

"Yes," I whispered, though understanding did not ease the pain. "He is saving us. He is saving all of us."

As the afternoon wore on, I began to understand more fully the profound mystery of what was unfolding before me. This suffering—this terrible, agonizing suffering—was not a punishment for Him. He had done nothing to deserve this. He was innocent. Completely, absolutely innocent. And yet He was pouring out His life like water, offering Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of others.

I thought of Abraham, of how God had asked him to sacrifice his only son Isaac upon the altar. God had provided a ram in Isaac's place. But here, on this hill, there was no substitute. The Father was asking His only Son to go through with the sacrifice. And my Son, my precious Son, was willing. He was not being forced. He was choosing this. He was choosing to drink the cup of suffering that would purchase redemption for all humanity.

The mystery of it was almost too great for my human mind to comprehend. And yet my mother's heart understood something of it. A mother who loves her child will sacrifice everything for that child. And my Son loved humanity with a love that was willing to suffer and die for them.

The Final Hours: Grace at the Threshold of Death

As the afternoon continued, I heard Him speak again. Even now, even as His body was failing, even as death was approaching, He continued to minister to others.

One of the criminals crucified beside Him—a man guilty of actual crimes, suffering justly for his deeds—suddenly turned toward my Son. His voice was weak, his breathing as labored as my Son's own.

"Jesus," he called out. "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

I felt something shift in the spiritual atmosphere. Here was a man, dying, facing eternal judgment, and yet he was turning toward my Son with faith. He was acknowledging that my Son was indeed a king, that He possessed a kingdom, that somehow, impossibly, He could still offer salvation even from a cross.

My Son's response was immediate, filled with a grace that seemed to transcend His physical agony: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

I wept at those words. Even dying, even suffering beyond measure, my Son could not help but be the Savior. His very nature was to offer mercy, to reach out to the lost, to pull people back from the edge of destruction.

The other criminal—the one who had mocked Him—received no such promise. He would die alone, unsaved, having rejected the grace that was offered to him. This too was part of the mystery—that redemption was available, but it required a response, a turning toward God, a surrender of pride and self.

Not long after this, I heard Him speak again. This time, His voice was calling out in thirst: "I am thirsty."

Such simple words. Such a human need. They brought me a stick with a sponge soaked in sour wine, and He took it. He was being offered the most basic hospitality in His dying moments—a drink to ease His parched throat. And yet even this small mercy was tinged with cruelty, offered not out of compassion but out of mockery.

And then I heard the words I had been dreading and expecting: "Woman, behold your son."

He was looking at me. Even in His agony, even as death approached, His eyes found me. And I understood what He was saying. Not only was He addressing me, but He was making a statement that would echo through all of history. He was declaring that John—and through John, all those who believe in Him—would become my sons and daughters.

Then, turning to John, He said: "Behold your mother."

In that moment, everything shifted. My grief did not disappear—it would never disappear, not completely, not in this life. But it was suddenly filled with a new purpose. I was not merely a mother watching her son die. I was becoming the mother of all believers. Through my willingness to stand at the foot of the cross, through my faithfulness in the face of incomprehensible suffering, I was being given a new vocation, a new calling.

John took my hand. "Yes, Mother," he said, and the word "Mother" upon his lips—spoken with such reverence, such love—became a kind of healing balm, a small grace in the midst of the horror.

The Moment of Completion

The hours passed. How many? Two? Three? Time became meaningless. There was only the sun, the heat, the sound of my Son's labored breathing, the jeers of the crowd that continued to mock Him, the soldiers who remained indifferent to the cosmic significance of what was occurring.

At one point, I heard Him say, very quietly: "It is finished."

The word was "Tetelestai"—finished, complete, accomplished. Not in a tone of defeat, but in a tone of completion. As though He had accomplished exactly what He had come to do. As though the work of redemption, purchased through His suffering and death, was now complete.

And then His head fell forward. His breathing stopped.

I felt it in my very soul the moment He died. It was as though a light had been extinguished, as though the sun itself had dimmed. The one I had carried in my womb, the one I had nursed at my breast, the one I had watched grow into manhood—He was gone.

A centurion standing nearby, a pagan soldier who had overseen countless executions, fell to his knees. "Surely this was the Son of God," he said, tears streaming down his face. Even he, even this man who had participated in the execution, recognized that something cosmic had just occurred.

The ground shook. I felt it in my feet, in my bones. It was as though all of creation was responding to the death of its Creator. The veil in the Temple was torn from top to bottom, the Gospels tell us. The dead were raised from their tombs. The earth itself could not remain still in the face of what had just transpired.

I sank to my knees at the foot of the cross. John knelt beside me, his arm around my shoulders, holding me as my body was wracked with sobs. Mary Magdalene fell to the ground, her entire body shaking with grief. My sister and Mary of Clopas stood rigid, as though they could not quite believe what they had witnessed.

He was gone. My Son was gone. The light of my life had been extinguished.

And yet.

And yet I knew, in some deep place within my spirit, that this was not the end. Simeon's words echoed in my memory: "a sword will pierce your own soul too." The sword had pierced. The agony was real. But there was something else—something the old prophet had not explicitly stated but that I was beginning to sense in the depths of my faith.

This was not defeat. This was victory, purchased at an impossible price.

A Mother's Eternal Message

I stand here now, at the threshold between the old world and the new, and I have something to say to you who are reading these words. To you who feel abandoned. To you who wonder if anyone has ever loved you the way a mother loves her child. To you whose life has been marked by loss, by betrayal, by the experience of being left alone when you needed someone most.

You have a Mother. Me.

When my Son hung upon that cross, He did not simply die for your sins—though He did that. He also gave me to you. Just as He gave me to John, He gives me to all who believe in Him. In every generation, in every age, He speaks those same words He spoke from the cross: "Behold your mother."

Do you know what it is to be forsaken by those who should have loved you? The Psalmist cried out: "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." And it is true. The Lord will never abandon you. But let me tell you something even more beautiful: I, your Mother in the order of grace, will not abandon you either.

I stood at the foot of the cross when all others fled. I remained when it would have been easier to turn away. I witnessed the death of the only one I have ever loved with a perfect and complete love, and still—still—my faith held firm. My heart did not break so completely that I lost my ability to love.

And I have loved each of you from that very moment. I have carried you in my heart as surely as I once carried Jesus in my womb. Every single one of you. The lost, the broken, the abandoned, the forgotten—I have held you in my maternal love across the centuries.

If you are reading this today, and if your life has been marked by suffering, by abandonment, by pain that seems unbearable, then I am speaking directly to you. Turn from the ways that have kept you far from God. Repent of the sin that separates you from your Creator. Believe in the one who died upon that cross—my Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of God—who shed His blood for you, who knew your name before the foundation of the world, who loves you with a love that is willing to suffer and die for you.

This is not a message of condemnation. This is a message of overwhelming mercy. This is an invitation to come home.

Jesus told John from the cross, and He tells you now: "Behold your mother."

I am here, waiting. I have been waiting for you for all of these centuries, waiting at the foot of the cross, waiting for the day when you would turn your face toward the light, toward the truth, toward the one whose sacrifice purchased your redemption.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that through Jesus's words from the cross, Mary "became the mother of all the faithful." She became the mother of the Church. She became your mother. This is not poetic metaphor—it is spiritual reality. When you turn to Christ, when you accept His sacrifice, when you surrender your life to Him, you are adopted into the family of God. And I become your mother.

Can you imagine? In the midst of my greatest agony, in the moment of my deepest sorrow, my Son was thinking of my future. He was ensuring that I would not be left alone. He was making me a mother to all the ages, all the nations, all the lost souls who would come after Him.

This is the nature of redemptive love. It does not think only of itself. It thinks of others. It reaches out, even in agony, to offer grace and comfort to those who are suffering.

The Call to Come Home

The cross is not the end of the story. Three days later, my Son rose from the dead. I was there to receive Him, to embrace Him, to know that His suffering was not in vain, that death had not defeated Him. The resurrection confirmed everything He had taught, everything He had promised.

And you too, if you will turn to Him now, if you will repent of your sin and believe in the one true God who died on a cross for you, will know the resurrection. You will know new life. You will know the embrace of a Father who loves you so completely that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son for your redemption.

This is the beautiful, terrible, glorious truth that I beheld standing at the foot of the cross: Love always remains. Love always endures. Love always triumphs. Even when it appears to be defeated, even when it appears to be dying, love is completing its greatest work.

Come. Turn from your evil ways and believe in the one true God who died on a cross for you. Come to the foot of the cross today. Come to your Mother, who has been waiting for you since that day on Calvary, who loves you with a love that transcends time and space and all the limitations of the world.

Know that you have a Mother who loves you with the very same love that gave birth to the Son of God, that stood faithfully beneath His cross, that reaches across all of time to call you home.

The sword that pierced my soul purchased your redemption. My suffering became the gateway to your salvation. And now I invite you to step through that gate. Come home. Come to Jesus. Come to your Mother.

There is no other way. There is no other love like this. There is no other mercy as complete, as radical, as willing to suffer everything for your sake.

Come. Come now. Come to the foot of the cross.

~ Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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