Editor’s Note: For more than 20 years, Father Raymond de Souza has preached the “Seven Last Words” devotion, a traditional meditation on the seven times Jesus speaks from the cross on Good Friday. Made famous in recent times by the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, the meditations are usually organized around a particular theme. For 2025, Father de Souza chose the Nicene Creed as his theme, as the Catholic Church marks this year the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. This first of seven meditations was preached at Holy Cross parish in Kemptville, Ontario, where Father de Souza is the pastor. Read Word 1 and Word 2.

“Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:25-27).

The third word from the cross reveals the feminine and maternal dimension of the mystery of salvation.

Our Blessed Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Sorrows, is present at the foot of the cross and addressed by her Son, Jesus, hanging before her eyes. He calls her “woman,” and it reminds us of that passage from the second chapter of St. John’s Gospel. The third word comes from John 19. But in John 2, we’re told that there’s a wedding at Cana and the mother of Jesus was invited. And because she was invited, Jesus and his disciples also went along.

At the cross, it is different. Mary is there because Jesus was invited. It was a different kind of invitation, an invitation from the Father. Jesus accepts it: Your will, not mine, be done.

There is the wedding at Cana and the wedding at Calvary. It is a different kind of wedding, a strange kind of wedding. There are a few witnesses. The best man is there — John, the beloved friend of Jesus. There are no rings upon the finger, but nails through the hands.

There on the cross, Jesus is giving his body for the Church. We speak about the bridegroom and the bride: Jesus, the Bridegroom, the Church as his Bride. And the mother of Jesus is there. At Cana, the wine ran out, and the water became wine. At Calvary, the water and blood run out of the side of Jesus.

The wine became blood at the Last Supper. Now, the water and the blood flow from the cross. At that wedding in Cana, the Bridegroom promised to give his heart to his Bride. Jesus gives his heart, too. You have ravished my heart (Song of Songs 4:9).

The last time that Mary is recorded speaking in the Gospels is at the wedding in Cana. She speaks often enough in the infancy of Jesus. When Jesus’ public life commences, she does not say very much at all. In fact, she is not obviously or, evidently, present. At Cana, she tells Jesus that the bridal couple needs saving — or, at least, the reception needs saving. He addresses her, “Woman.” He says mysteriously, “Woman, my hour has not yet come.”

Now, the hour has come. And Mary is there.

He speaks a second time. First, “Woman, behold your son,” and then he says to the disciple, to St. John, “Behold, your mother.”

Jesus gives Mary two titles from the cross: “Woman” and “Mother.” Those titles go back to the beginning, much farther back than the wedding at Galilee. They go back to Genesis. After the Fall, when the Lord God appears in the garden to Adam and Eve, he catalogs for them the consequences of the Fall — the toil, the disharmony and the division. Adam listens to all the things that will befall him, that will afflict Eve.

His response is, surprisingly, a hopeful one, because he hears in the midst of all that his wife, then without a name, is going to bear children. Although the Lord God tells her that it will be in the pain of labor that these children will come forth, Adam does not focus on that; maybe because he is a man, and those pains are not going to be his. Or maybe because he sees, even amid the Fall, that there is good news. Adam therefore called his wife Eve, that she would be the “mother of all the living.”

Adam celebrated the promise of life and motherhood. So it is on the cross, where this son of Adam speaks again of life and motherhood. Behold, your mother!

Mary is to be the mother of all the living in a different way. St. John stands beside Mary in the place of all disciples, of every time and place. If he stands in for all the disciples, he stands in the place of the Church. Mary is to be the mother of all the living, the mother of all disciples, the mother of the Church.

As in Genesis, when all appears to have been lost, there is good news. The Son of God is hanging on the cross and speaks of motherhood, which is to speak of life.

And from that hour, the disciple took her into his home. John does as Adam did, taking Eve into his home. John does as Joseph did. Joseph was told by the angel, “Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home.” Joseph did so. Now, that mission given to St. Joseph is given to St. John. But St. John is not Mary’s husband — he is now her son.

We have a lesson here, written into nature and elevated to the supernatural, that a woman has a husband. From that husband, and from that marriage, that nuptial union, comes the son.

But the status of a woman as a wife, of having a husband, is a transitory one. Jesus tells us that marriage is for this world (Matthew 22:30), and in heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. We do not know exactly what the relationship of a married couple is in heaven. Obviously, there must be something distinctive about their relationship, but they are not married, for Jesus tells us so — as does the marriage ritual, which speaks of marriage until “death do us part.”

There are mothers in heaven, starting with Mary. To be a mother is a permanent relationship. Mary had a husband, as many women do. But now she is going to be cared for by her son, a relationship that endures into eternity. Fatherhood belongs to eternity, even before creation, in the persons of the blessed Trinity. In the Blessed Mother, motherhood is inserted analogously into eternity. So too have Christian disciples across the centuries; there are statues and images of Mary in homes in every part of the earth.

Mary appears in the Scriptures when others don’t. And when others are present, Mary seems to fade away. At the Visitation, when her cousin Elizabeth is in seclusion, having conceived a child in her old age, Mary goes to be with her while she is hidden. When the time comes for John the Baptist to be born, and everybody is gathered around, Mary has departed.

After the Ascension, when the apostles return and lock themselves in the room, not knowing what exactly will happen, Mary joins them and prays with them. The day of Pentecost comes, and she is there with them. When they go out and preach, as St. Peter does, in his great Pentecost sermon, Mary seems to not be present. She comes when she is needed, when others are not present.

It's a lesson for our own lives of discipleship. When we feel alone, we know that that is precisely when we can be sure that the Blessed Virgin Mary is with us.

We see that on the Way of the Cross, the Via Crucis. Most have fled. Mary is there. During the Via Crucis, the Stations of the Cross, we draw close to Mary as she draws close to her Son. The Via Crucis begins with the judgment and condemnation, the carrying of the cross and the first time Jesus falls. It appears that he is alone.

Then Jesus meets his afflicted mother. His mother comes in the Fourth Station, and, immediately, things begin to change. Those who are needed come to help him. Mary comes at the Fourth Station and sees what is needed.

At the Fifth Station, Simon of Cyrene comes to help Jesus carry the cross. Then comes Veronica, at the Sixth Station, to comfort him. Then come the holy women at the Eighth Station, weeping and offering consolation. John and Mary Magdalene stand with her at the 11th Station, as Jesus is nailed to the cross. After the Crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea comes at the 13th Station to take the body of Jesus down and place it in her loving arms. Finally, Nicodemus, at the 14th Station, brings what is necessary to prepare Jesus for burial. Mary comes when others flee, and because Mary comes, others come. She appears when she is needed.

Mary appears at a central place in the Nicene Creed. The creed begins with the divinity of God, of the Father, and the divinity of Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son. Then:

For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.

For our salvation, he comes down. But how can he come down? Furthermore, how could he suffer and die and be crucified under Pontius Pilate? How could he do any of that as God? He couldn’t. God can’t.

He must become incarnate to accomplish that for our salvation. The Incarnation is the link between the divinity that will come to save us and the humanity through which he will save us. The Son of God cannot die for us, but the Son of Mary can. Thus, Mary in the creed protects both the humanity and divinity of Christ.

At the Council of Nicaea, that was in dispute. Was Jesus truly God? And how could he be truly God if he was also truly man? That was the critical question. It was resolved in the first part of the creed, “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.”

Mary then protects that divinity (“by the Holy Spirit”) and the humanity (“and became man”).

She is a woman, and if she gives birth, it can only be to a human being — in this case, to a male child, a son. She conceives, though, not by a man, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of God himself — and so the child born of her is also God.

Remarkably, the Holy Spirit appears in the creed this first time in relation to the Incarnation. The Holy Spirit appears alongside the Son being sent into the world. The Son is sent into the world after the Holy Spirit is sent to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Holy Spirit appears in relation to the Incarnation, in relation to Mary. Later, the creed will refer to him as the Lord and Giver of Life. That certainly refers to the origin of creation, where, at the beginning, the Spirit hovered over the waters. It also refers to the Incarnation, where the Holy Spirit is the giver of life, of divine life.

The Council of Nicaea resolved the Arian controversy in 325, declaring that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, was “consubstantial” with the Father. It was resolved doctrinally. It was not resolved in terms of common acceptance.

Within 35 years of Nicaea, the condemned Arian position — that Jesus was not divine — the heresy, the heretical position, the false position — was considered by most people to be the correct position, the orthodox one, despite the teaching of Nicaea. It was widely accepted and widely presented.

Years later, St. Jerome, studying this period as a historian, wrote those famous words: “That the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.”

The work of the Council of Nicaea, though definitive and authoritative, was not immediately effective. Amongst this turmoil, many bishops who had subscribed to Nicaea recanted. Various regional councils dissented from the teaching of Nicaea.

Against this dissent, an important figure emerged — Athanasius. He was a deacon at the Council of Nicaea. A young man in 325, he went on to become bishop of Alexandria. He defended the teaching of Nicaea, against so much opposition that it gave rise to a sort of title, or even nickname: Athanasius contra mundum. He was “against the whole world,” it seemed. And he suffered persecution and exile for that.

The battle for the truth of Jesus Christ, fully divine and fully human, would continue. In fact, that question would occupy the first four ecumenical councils: Nicaea in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451.

That quartet of councils was focused on the best way to express who Jesus is. At Ephesus, the question arose: How do these human and divine natures relate to each other? The teaching was clarified that there was one divine Person who had two natures, a divine nature and a human nature. That Person is the eternal Son of God. He has a divine nature from all eternity and a human nature because of the Incarnation.

The Council of Ephesus chose to express this truth by reference to the Virgin Mary, declaring that she was properly called the Mother of God. She was not just the mother of Jesus. Mary did not give birth to a nature but to a person. She carried in her womb the human nature of a divine Person. Ephesus summarized its teaching on Jesus by defining a Marian title: the “Mother of God.”

The most recent council of the Church, the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, applied to Mary another title, “Mother of the Church.” It was a title informally used for centuries, but Pope St. Paul VI formally assigned it. The title “Mother of the Church” comes at the foot of the cross. Behold, your son; behold, your mother.

Our Holy Father Pope Francis recently established a feast of Mary, Mother of the Church. It falls the day after Pentecost. We are celebrating a Jubilee Year in 2025, and during jubilee years the Holy Doors of the different basilicas in Rome are opened. The Marian basilica is called St. Mary Major, and the Holy Door there has two titles inscribed upon it: “Mother of God” and “Mother of the Church.” Underneath those titles is written “Ephesus 431” and “Vatican II 1965.”

The door expresses the tradition of the councils seeking to ever more clearly define and proclaim who Jesus is. The work began at Nicaea continued at Ephesus and then, in our own day, at Vatican II. Mary is the Mother of God and Mother of the Church. The first one to hear that was Mary herself from the cross. Behold, your son.