In re-reading Aemon Dufy’s Stripping of the Altars, I was very struck by the way in which rood screens incorporating Mary and John at the foot of the cross became so important. 

The restoration of the Catholic faith in Queen Mary’s reign saw one of the most substantial efforts to re-catholicise the parish churches involved, getting back the rood screens that the Edwardian regime had torn down. It was all the more poignant reading it in Holy Week.

There, on the rood screen, Jesus was accompanied at the cross by Mary and John. In this scene he utters one of his seven utterances from the cross: “Woman behold you son. Son behold your mother.”