There have been many reactions to Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, some of them profound, moving and informative. But there were also silly and even perverse reactions, some of them predictably so. At one point in the movie, the crucified Jesus looks into his Mother's eyes. This was interpreted by some as an attempt to show that Mary was a co-redemptrix. This, of course, is to read too much into something that would be a natural reaction between a mother and her suffering son. Did the proposer of this opinion expect Mary to stand like a block of ice, untouched and unmoved by her son's suffering? Did he expect Jesus to look at Mary in an insolent, contemptuous, rejecting manner? Has the poor gentleman no experience or understanding of motherly and filial love? This story illustrates how far some people still have to go in understanding the mystery of even the natural human relationship of Mary and Jesus.

Today's feast centres on Mary's compassion, where "compassion" means "suffering along with". It does not require any Christian doctrine to affirm that Mary, the human mother of Jesus, must have suffered with her son as every mother of a suffering child has ever suffered along with her child in the depth of motherly compassion.