And John took her home
John 19:26-27
26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!"
27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household.
The Holy Father John Paul II, as every good Catholic, loved Mary our Blessed Mother. His devotion intensified as He read the book True Devotion to Mary, written by Saint Louis de Montfort in which he tells us to consecrate ourselves to Her Immaculate Heart and to live a life through Mary, with Mary, in Mary and for Mary.
As good disciples of Christ we have to come to Calvary and accompany Our Lord during his agony, it is there that we see the mother of Jesus and then we hear the words of Christ speaking to every one of us "Behold your mother". The Holy Father took the words of Christ very seriously and he took Mary as his mother. In response to that gift of Christ he answered "I will be all yours". In Latin: "Totus tuus"
He had a great devotion for the Holy Rosary and dedicated a Year of the Rosary to Our Blessed Mother from 16 October 2002 to 31 October 2003.
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John Paul II:
"Totus Tuus. This phrase is not only an expression of piety, or simply an expression of devotion. It is more. During the Second World War, while I was employed as a factory worker, I came to be attracted to Marian devotion. At first, it had seemed to me that I should distance myself a bit from the Marian devotion of my childhood, in order to focus more on Christ. Thanks to Saint Louis of Montfort, I came to understand that true devotion to the Mother of God is actually Christocentric, indeed, it is very profoundly rooted in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption".
[John Paul II in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Arnoldo Mondadori Editori, 1994] |
