Stabat mater dolorosa

Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Cruxem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

Singing these words to Pergolesi's music this evening, I thought of all the mothers, their heads covered, weeping over their dead children in the lands of the Middle East. The words are so charged for Christians with the weight of Good Friday, but as the music lamented with the woman who had to watch her son die I could feel also the pain of those other, helpless, weeping women. We sing; they mourn. God is crucified daily, and we stand and watch.