Excerpt from 'Glories of Mary' By St. Alphonsus de Liguori

Moreover, our Mother loves us much, because we were recommended to her by her beloved Jesus, when he before expiring said to her, Woman, behold thy son! for we were all represented in the person of St. John, as we have already observed: these were his last words; and the last recommendations left before death by persons we love are always treasured and never forgotten.

But again, we are exceedingly dear to Mary on account of the sufferings we cost her. Mothers generally love those children most, the preservation of whose lives has cost them the most suffering and anxiety; we are those children for whom Mary, in order to obtain for us the life of grace, was obliged to endure the bitter agony of herself offering her beloved Jesus to die an ignominious death, and had also to see him expire before her own eyes in the midst of the most cruel and unheard-of torments. It was then by this great offering of Mary that we were born to the life of grace; we are therefore her very dear children, since we cost her so great suffering. And thus, as it is written of the love of the Eternal Father towards men, in giving his own Son to death for us, that God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son ("Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut filium suum unigenitum daret."—John, iii. 16). "So also," says St. Bonaventure, "we can say of Mary, that she has so loved us as to give her only-begotten Son for us" ("Sic Maria dilexit nos, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret"). And when did she give him? She gave him, says Father Nieremberg, when she granted him permission to deliver himself up to death; she gave him to us, when, others neglecting to do so, either out of hatred or from fear, she might herself have pleaded for the life of her Son before the judges. Well may it be supposed that the words of so wise and loving a mother would have had great weight, at least with Pilate, and might have prevented him from sentencing a man to death whom he knew and had declared to be innocent. But no, Mary would not say a word in favor of her Son, lest she might prevent that death on which our salvation depended.