Today is remembered throughout the western Christian world as Good Friday – the day when Jesus was crucified. It has become one of the commonest themes for religious art over the centuries.

St Mary’s Chapel was built at a lower level in the middle of the 15^th century to allow the expansion of the Kirk of St Nicholas above the valley of the Putachie Burn. It was used for a number of years by a group of ladies who focussed their devotion on the suffering of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the time of the crucifixion. The photograph with this blog shows the right hand light of the window created by Aberdeen artist Douglas Strachan for the Chapel. This is half of Strachan’s first stained glass window. The image portrays the words in John’s Gospel chapter 19 verses 25-27 “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother ….  When Jesus saw his mother standing there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman here is your son’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother’. From that time on, this disciple took her into his home”. The image created by Strachan shows Mary, with a sad and forlorn look on her face, resting on ‘the disciple’ with Jesus on the cross looking down on them.