And for that reason, the two of them – Mary, brought into the world for Jesus; and Jesus, brought into the world by Mary – the two of them must always have been inseparable.

It was so at Nazareth.  The Immaculate Mary alone was qualified to teach and train the Divine Child in his most impressionable and tender years.  And she alone, in the whole of this sinful world, by virtue of her unsullied sanctity, could provide him as he grew up with a human companionship that was never clouded by human sin.

That is why there existed a perfect understanding between them such as he enjoyed with no one else.  Indeed it was this bond of holiness which made Mother and Son truly One.

And as they were inseparable at Nazareth, so also were they on Calvary.

“At the cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful mother weeping,
close to Jesus at the last…” (1)

That scene has been the subject of many a famous and inspired painting – Our Lady sharing Our Lord’s last hour as she had shared his first.