At the same time, Holy Mother Church invites us to accompany the Virgin Mary in her motherly sufferings. She never abandoned her Son and, unlike the vast majority of her disciples, she did not flee and remained firm at the foot of the cross.
Towards the end of the Celebration of the Passion, after the Adoration of the Cross, the Roman Missal contemplates: “According to the conditions of the place or popular traditions and, according to pastoral convenience, the Stabat Mater(…) or some appropriate song that remembers the pain of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (VS, n. 20).
At night, the faithful meditate on the journey of Jesus Christ towards Calvary or Golgotha through the Way of the Cross (The way of the cross). Then, before the end of the day, in many places the “Office of Darkness” is celebrated in which the darkness into which the world fell when the Redeemer dies is remembered. This celebration, generally held inside the temple and in an atmosphere of increasing darkness, concludes with a sign of hope: after gradually leaving the temple in darkness, a candle is lit on the altar to remind us that Jesus will be resurrected.