Reflections on Each of the Seven Dolors of Mary in Particular
On the First Dolor: St. Simeon’s Prophecy
In this valley of tears every man is born to weep, and each must suffer the afflictions that befall him day by day. But how much more wretched would life be if everyone knew beforehand the future evils that were to afflict him! Too unhappy, says Seneca, would the man be whose lot was such: Calamitosus esset animus futuri praescius, et ante miserias miser (Ep. 98). The Lord shows us this mercy: he does not make known to us the crosses that await us, so that, if we must suffer them, at least we may suffer them only once. But he did not show this mercy to Mary. Because God willed her to be the Queen of Dolors, and in all things like his Son, she had always before her eyes, and continually suffered, all the sorrows that awaited her—the sufferings of the passion and death of her beloved Jesus. For St. Simeon in the temple, after he had received the divine child in his arms, foretold to her that this child was to be the mark of all the contradiction and persecution of men—“Set for a sign which shall be contradicted”—and that therefore the sword of sorrow should pierce her soul: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:34–35). The holy Virgin herself told St. Matilda that at St. Simeon’s announcement all her joy was changed into sorrow.
For, as it was revealed to St. Teresa, the blessed Mother, although she knew before this that the life of her Son would be sacrificed for the salvation of the world, then learned more particularly and distinctly the sufferings and cruel death that awaited her poor Son. She knew that he would be contradicted in all things. Contradicted in his teaching; for instead of being believed, he would be reckoned a blasphemer for teaching that he was the Son of God, as the impious Caiphas declared him to be, saying: “He hath blasphemed; he is guilty of death” (Matt. 26:65–66). Contradicted in his good name; for he was noble, of royal lineage, and was despised as a peasant: “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matt. 13:55); “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3). He was wisdom itself, and was treated as an ignorant man: “How doth this man know letters, having never learned?” (John 7:15). He was treated as a false prophet: “And they blindfolded him, and smote his face… saying: Prophesy, who is it that struck thee?” (Luke 22:64). He was treated as a madman: “He is mad; why hear you him?” (John 10:20). As a wine-bibber, a glutton, and a friend of sinners: “Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Luke 7:34). As a sorcerer: “By the prince of devils he casteth out devils” (Matt. 9:34). As a heretic and one possessed: “Do not we say well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” (John 8:48). In a word, Jesus was considered so wicked and notorious a man that no trial was thought necessary to condemn him, as the Jews said to Pilate: “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee” (John 18:30). He was contradicted in his very soul; for even his eternal Father, to give place to the divine justice, contradicted him by refusing to hear him when he prayed: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me” (Matt. 26:39); and abandoned him to fear, weariness, and sadness, so that our afflicted Lord said: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matt. 26:38). His interior suffering even caused him to sweat blood. Contradicted and persecuted, in a word, in his body and in his life; for he was tortured in all his sacred members—in his hands, in his feet, in his face, in his head, in his whole body—until, drained to the last drop of his blood, he died an ignominious death on the cross.
When David, in the midst of all his pleasures and royal grandeur, heard from the prophet Nathan that his son should die—“The child that is born to thee shall surely die” (2 Kings 12:14)—he could find no peace, but wept, fasted, and slept upon the ground. Mary received with the greatest calmness the announcement that her Son should die, and peacefully continued to submit to it; but what grief she must have continually suffered, seeing this beloved Son always near her, hearing from him words of eternal life, and beholding his holy bearing! Abraham suffered great affliction during the three days he passed with his beloved Isaac, after he knew that he was to lose him. O God, not for three days, but for thirty-three years, Mary had to endure a like sorrow. Like, do I say? A sorrow as much greater as the Son of Mary was more lovely than the son of Abraham. The Blessed Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget that, while she lived on earth, there was not an hour in which this grief did not pierce her soul. “As often,” she went on, “as I looked upon my Son, as often as I wrapped him in his swaddling clothes, as often as I saw his hands and his feet, so often was my soul overwhelmed, as it were, with a fresh sorrow, because I considered how he would be crucified.” Rupert the Abbot, contemplating Mary while she nursed her Son, imagines her addressing him in these words: “A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall abide between my breasts” (Cant. 1:12). Ah, my Son, I clasp you in my arms because you are so dear to me; but the dearer you are to me, the more you become to me a bundle of myrrh and of sorrow when I think of your sufferings. Mary, says St. Bernardine of Siena, considered that the strength of the saints was to pass through death, the beauty of paradise to be disfigured, the Lord of the universe to be bound as a criminal, the Creator of all things to be livid with stripes, the Judge of all to be condemned, the glory of heaven despised, the King of kings to be crowned with thorns and treated as a mock king.
Father Engelgrave writes that it was revealed to the same St. Bridget that the afflicted Mother, knowing all that her Son would have to suffer, thought, while she nursed him, of the gall and vinegar; when she swathed him, of the cords with which he was to be bound; when she bore him in her arms, of his being nailed to the cross; and when he slept, of his death. As often as she put his clothes on him, she reflected that one day they would be torn from him, that he might be crucified; and when she beheld his sacred hands and feet, and thought of the nails that were to pierce them, then—as Mary said to St. Bridget—“my eyes filled with tears, and my heart was tortured with grief.”
The evangelist says that, as Jesus Christ advanced in years, so also he advanced in wisdom and in grace with God and men (Luke 2:52). That is, he advanced in wisdom and grace before men, or in their esteem; and before God, according to St. Thomas, inasmuch as all his works would continually have availed to increase his merit, if from the beginning grace in its full perfection had not been conferred on him by virtue of the hypostatic union. But if Jesus advanced in the esteem and love of others, how much more did he advance in Mary’s love! Yet, O God, as love increased in her, so much the more increased in her the grief of having to lose him by a death so cruel. And the nearer the time of her Son’s passion drew, with so much the greater pain did that sword of sorrow foretold by St. Simeon pierce the heart of the Mother. This very thing the angel revealed to St. Bridget, saying: “That sword of sorrow drew nearer to the Virgin hour by hour, as the time of her Son’s passion drew nearer.”
If, then, Jesus our King and his most holy Mother did not refuse, for love of us, to suffer such cruel pains throughout their whole lives, there is no reason for us to complain if we suffer a little. Jesus crucified once appeared to Sister Magdalene Orsini, a Dominican nun, when she had long been suffering a great trial, and encouraged her to remain with him on the cross with the sorrow that was afflicting her. Sister Magdalene answered him with a complaint: “O Lord, you suffered on the cross only three hours, but I have been suffering this cross for years.” Then the Redeemer replied: “Ah, ignorant soul, what do you say? From the first moment I was conceived, I suffered in my heart what I afterward suffered on the cross.” If, then, we too suffer some affliction and complain, let us imagine that Jesus and his Mother Mary are saying these same words to us.
Example
Father Reviglione, of the Society of Jesus, relates that a certain youth practiced the devotion of visiting every day an image of the sorrowful Mary, in which she was represented with seven swords piercing her heart. One night the unhappy youth fell into mortal sin. Going the next morning to visit the image, he saw in the heart of the Blessed Virgin not seven swords only, but eight. As he stood gazing at this, he heard a voice telling him that this sin had added the eighth sword to the heart of Mary. This softened his hard heart; he went at once to confession, and through the intercession of his advocate recovered the divine grace.
Prayer
O my blessed Mother, not one sword only, but as many swords as I have committed sins, have I added to those seven in your heart. Ah, my Lady, your sorrows are not due to you, who are innocent, but to me, who am guilty. But since you were willing to suffer so much for me, ah, by your merits obtain for me a great sorrow for my sins, and patience under the trials of this life—trials that will always be light in comparison with what I deserve, for I have often merited hell. Amen.
On the Second Dolor: The Flight of Jesus into Egypt
As the stag, wounded by an arrow, carries the pain with him wherever he goes, because he carries with him the arrow that has wounded him, so the divine Mother, after the prophecy of St. Simeon (as we saw in our consideration of the first grief), always carried her sorrow with her by the continual remembrance of her Son’s passion. Hailgrin, explaining this passage of the Canticles—“The hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels” (Cant. 7:5)—says that these hairs of Mary were her continual thoughts of the passion of Jesus, which kept always before her eyes the blood that was one day to flow from his wounds. Your mind, O Mary, and your thoughts, steeped in the blood of our Lord’s passion, were always moved with sorrow, as if they actually saw the blood flowing from his wounds. Thus her Son himself was that arrow in the heart of Mary; for the more worthy of love he showed himself to her, the more he wounded her with the sorrowful thought that she should lose him by so cruel a death. Let us now pass to the consideration of the second sword of sorrow that wounded Mary, in the flight of her infant Jesus into Egypt from the persecution of Herod.
Herod, having heard that the expected Messiah was born, foolishly feared that the newborn King would deprive him of his kingdom. And so St. Fulgentius, rebuking him for his folly, says: “Why, O Herod, are you thus disturbed? This King who is born has not come to conquer kings by arms, but to subdue them, in a wonderful manner, by his death.” The impious Herod therefore waited to learn from the holy Magi where the King was born, that he might take his life; but finding himself deceived by the Magi, he ordered all the infants that could be found in the neighborhood of Bethlehem to be put to death. But an angel appeared in a dream to St. Joseph and said to him: “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt” (Matt. 2:13). According to Gerson, Joseph made this command known to Mary at once, that very night; and, taking the infant Jesus, they began their journey, as seems clear from the Gospel itself: “Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt” (Matt. 2:14). O God, as Blessed Albert the Great says in the name of Mary: must he, then, who came to save men flee from men? Debet fugere qui salvator est mundi? And then the afflicted Mary knew that the prophecy of Simeon concerning her Son was already beginning to be fulfilled—“He is set for a sign which shall be contradicted”—seeing that scarcely is he born when he is persecuted to death. What suffering it must have been to the heart of Mary, writes St. John Chrysostom, to hear the tidings of that cruel exile of herself and her Son! To flee from her own people to strangers, from the holy temple of the one true God to the temples of demons. What greater tribulation than that a newborn child, clinging to its mother’s bosom, should be forced to flee with the mother herself!
Everyone can imagine how much Mary must have suffered on this journey. It was a long way to Egypt. Authors generally agree with Barradas that it was four hundred miles, so that it was at least a journey of thirty days. The way, as St. Bonaventure describes it, was rough, unknown, through woods, and little frequented. The season was winter, and so they had to travel in snow, rain, wind, and storms, and over bad and difficult roads. Mary was then fifteen years of age, a delicate virgin, unaccustomed to such journeys. They had no servant to attend them. Joseph and Mary, says St. Peter Chrysologus, had neither manservant nor maidservant; they were themselves both masters and servants. O God, how piteous a spectacle it was to see that tender Virgin, with that newborn infant in her arms, wandering through the world! St. Bonaventure asks: Where did they find food? Where did they rest at night? How were they lodged? What other food could they have than a piece of hard bread that Joseph brought with him or begged in charity? Where could they have slept—particularly in the two hundred miles of desert through which they traveled, where, as authors relate, there were neither houses nor inns—except on the sand, or under some tree in the wood, in the open air, exposed to robbers and to the wild beasts in which Egypt abounded? Ah, if anyone had met these three greatest personages in the world, what would he have taken them to be but three poor, wandering beggars?
They lived in Egypt, according to Brocard and Jansenius, in a district called Matarea—though, according to St. Anselm, they dwelt in Heliopolis, first called Memphis, and now Cairo. And here let us consider the great poverty they must have suffered during the seven years they were there, as St. Antoninus, St. Thomas, and others assert. They were foreigners, unknown, without income, without money, without kindred; they could scarcely support themselves by their humble labor. Since they were destitute, says St. Basil, it is clear what effort they must have made to obtain there the necessaries of life. Moreover, Ludolph of Saxony has written—and let it be repeated for the consolation of the poor—that so great was Mary’s poverty there that sometimes she had not so much as a morsel of bread when her Son, driven by hunger, asked it of her.
St. Matthew also relates that, when Herod was dead, the angel again appeared in a dream to St. Joseph and directed him to return to Judea. St. Bonaventure, speaking of this return, considers the greater pain of the Blessed Virgin on account of the sufferings Jesus must have endured on that journey, having reached about the age of seven years—an age, says the saint, when he was so large that he could not be carried, and yet so small that he could not go without help.
The sight, then, of Jesus and Mary wandering like fugitives through the world teaches us that we too should live as pilgrims on the earth, detached from the goods the world offers us, since we must soon leave them and go to eternity. “We have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). To which St. Augustine adds: You are a stranger; you give a look, and then you pass on—Hospes es, vides et transis. It also teaches us to embrace crosses, for we cannot live in this world without a cross. Blessed Veronica of Binasco, an Augustinian nun, was carried in spirit to accompany Mary and the infant Jesus on this journey to Egypt; and at the end of it the divine Mother said to her: “My child, have you seen through what difficulties we have reached this place? Now learn that no one receives graces without suffering.” He who would feel least the sufferings of this life must take Jesus and Mary with him: Accipe puerum et matrem ejus—“Take the child and his mother.” For him who lovingly bears in his heart this Son and this Mother, all sufferings become light, and even sweet and dear. Let us love them, then; let us console Mary by receiving her Son within our hearts—the Son whom, even now, men continue to persecute with their sins.
Example
One day the most holy Mary appeared to the Blessed Colette, a Franciscan nun, and showed her the infant Jesus in a basin, torn in pieces, and then said to her: “Thus do sinners continually treat my Son, renewing his death and my sorrows. O my daughter, pray for them, that they may be converted.” Similar to this is the other vision that appeared to the venerable Sister Jane, of Jesus and Mary, also a Franciscan nun. As she was one day meditating on the infant Jesus persecuted by Herod, she heard a great noise, as of armed men pursuing someone; and then there appeared before her a most beautiful child, fleeing in great distress, who cried to her: “My Jane, help me, hide me! I am Jesus of Nazareth; I am fleeing from sinners who wish to kill me, and who persecute me as Herod did. Do you save me.”
Prayer
Then, O Mary, even after your Son has died at the hands of men who persecuted him to death, have these ungrateful men still not ceased persecuting him with their sins, and afflicting you, O Mother of Sorrows? And I, too, O God, have been one of these. Ah, my most sweet Mother, obtain for me tears to weep for such ingratitude. And then, by the sufferings you endured on the journey to Egypt, help me on the journey I am making to eternity, that at length I may come to be united with you in loving my persecuted Savior in the land of the blessed. Amen.
On the Third Dolor: The Loss of Jesus in the Temple
St. James the Apostle has said that our perfection consists in the virtue of patience: “And patience hath a perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing” (James 1:4). Since the Lord gave us the Virgin Mary as an example of perfection, it was necessary that she should be laden with sorrows, so that in her we might admire and imitate her heroic patience. The dolor we are to consider today is one of the greatest our divine Mother suffered during her life: the loss of her Son in the temple. He who is born blind scarcely feels the pain of being deprived of the light of day; but to one who has once had sight and enjoyed the light, it is a great sorrow to find himself deprived of it by blindness. So it is with those unhappy souls who, blinded by the mire of this earth, have but little knowledge of God, and therefore scarcely feel pain at not finding him. On the contrary, the man who, enlightened with heavenly light, has been made worthy to find by love the sweet presence of the highest Good—O God, how he mourns when he finds himself deprived of it!
From this we can judge how painful to Mary, accustomed to enjoy constantly the sweet presence of Jesus, must have been that third sword which wounded her when she lost him in Jerusalem and was separated from him for three days. In the second chapter of St. Luke we read that the Blessed Virgin, accustomed to visit the temple every year at the paschal season with Joseph her spouse and with Jesus, once went there when he was about twelve years old, and Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, though she was not aware of it, for she thought he was in the company of others. When she reached Nazareth she inquired for her Son, and not finding him there, she returned at once to Jerusalem to seek him, but did not find him until after three days. Now let us imagine the distress that afflicted Mother must have felt in those three days while she searched everywhere for her Son, saying with the spouse in the Canticles: “Have you seen him whom my soul loveth?” (Cant. 3:3). But she could hear no tidings of him. Oh, with how much greater tenderness must Mary, overcome with weariness and yet not having found her beloved Son, have repeated those words of Ruben concerning his brother Joseph: “The boy doth not appear, and whither shall I go?” My Jesus does not appear, and I know not what to do that I may find him; but where shall I go without my treasure? Weeping continually, she repeated during those three days, with David: “My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?” (Ps. 41:4). With reason, then, does Pelbart say that during those nights the afflicted Mother had no rest, but wept and prayed without ceasing that God would let her find her Son. And, according to St. Bernard, often during that time did she repeat to her Son himself the words of the spouse: “Show me where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, lest I begin to wander” (Cant. 1:6). My Son, tell me where you are, that I may no longer wander, seeking you in vain.
Some writers assert, and not without reason, that this dolor was not only one of the greatest, but the greatest and most painful of all. For, in the first place, in her other dolors Mary had Jesus with her: she suffered when St. Simeon uttered the prophecy in the temple, and she suffered in the flight into Egypt, but always with Jesus; in this dolor, however, she suffered at a distance from Jesus, not knowing where he was: “And the light of my eyes itself is not with me” (Ps. 37:11). Thus, with tears, she then exclaimed: Ah, the light of my eyes, my dear Jesus, is no longer with me; he is far from me, and I know not where he is! Origen says that, through the love this holy Mother bore her Son, she suffered more at this loss of Jesus than any martyr ever suffered at death. Ah, how long were those three days for Mary! They seemed three ages. Very bitter days, for there was none to comfort her. And who, she exclaimed with Jeremias, who can console me, if he who could console me is far from me? And therefore my eyes are not satisfied with weeping: “Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down with water, because the comforter is far from me” (Lam. 1:16). And with Tobias she repeated: “What manner of joy shall be to me, who sit in darkness, and see not the light of heaven?” (Tob. 5:12).
Secondly, Mary understood well the cause and end of her other dolors—namely, the redemption of the world and the divine will; but in this one she did not know the cause of her Son’s absence. The sorrowful Mother was grieved to find Jesus withdrawn from her; for her humility, says Lanspergius, made her consider herself unworthy to remain with him any longer, to attend upon him on earth, and to have the care of such a treasure. And perhaps she may have thought within herself: I have not served him as I ought. Perhaps I have been guilty of some neglect, and therefore he has left me. They sought him, lest perchance he had left them, as Origen has said. Certainly there is no greater grief for a soul that loves God than the fear of having displeased him. And therefore Mary never complained in any other sorrow but this, lovingly remonstrating with Jesus after she found him: “Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (Luke 2:48). By these words she did not wish to reprove Jesus, as the heretics blasphemously assert, but only to make known to him the grief she had felt during his absence, on account of the love she bore him. It was not a rebuke, says Blessed Denis the Carthusian, but a loving complaint: Non erat increpatio, sed amorosa conquestio. Finally, this sword so cruelly pierced the heart of the Virgin that the Blessed Benvenuta, desiring one day to share the pain of the holy Mother in this dolor, prayed her to obtain for her this grace. Mary appeared to her with the infant Jesus in her arms; but while Benvenuta was enjoying the sight of that most beautiful child, in one moment she was deprived of it. So great was her sorrow that she had recourse to Mary, imploring her pity that it might not make her die of grief. The holy Virgin appeared to her again three days later and said: “Now learn, O my daughter, that your sorrow is but a small part of the sorrow I suffered when I lost my Son.”
This sorrow of Mary ought, in the first place, to comfort those souls who are desolate and no longer enjoy the sweet presence of their Lord that they once enjoyed. Let them weep, but let them weep in peace, as Mary wept in the absence of her Son. Let them take courage, and not fear that on this account they have lost the divine favor; for God himself said to St. Teresa: “No one is lost without knowing it, and no one is deceived without wishing to be deceived.” If the Lord withdraws from the sight of the soul that loves him, he does not on that account withdraw from her heart. Often he hides himself so that she may seek him with greater desire and love. But those who would find Jesus must seek him, not amid the delights and pleasures of the world, but amid crosses and mortifications, as Mary sought him: “We sought thee sorrowing,” as she said to her Son. Learn from Mary to seek Jesus, says Origen: Disce a Maria quaerere Jesum.
Moreover, in this world we should seek no other good than Jesus. Job was not unhappy when he lost all that he possessed on earth—riches, children, health, and honors—and even descended from a throne to a dunghill; for because he had God with him, even then he was happy. St. Augustine, speaking of him, says: He had lost all that God had given him, but he had God himself—Perdiderat illa quae dederat Deus, sed habebat ipsum Deum. Unhappy and truly wretched are those souls who have lost God. If Mary wept three days for the absence of her Son, how ought sinners to weep who have lost the divine grace, to whom God says: “You are not my people, and I will not be yours” (Osee 1:9)! For this is what sin does: it separates the soul from God. “Your iniquities have divided between you and your God” (Isa. 59:2). Hence, even if sinners possess all the goods of earth and have lost God, everything on earth becomes vanity and affliction to them, as Solomon confessed: “Behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Eccles. 1:14). But, as St. Augustine says, the greatest misfortune of these poor blind souls is that if they lose an ox, they do not fail to go in search of it; if they lose a sheep, they use all diligence to find it; if they lose a beast of burden, they cannot rest; but they lose the highest Good, which is God, and yet they eat and drink and take their rest.
Example
We read in the Annual Letters of the Society of Jesus that in India a young man, just leaving his room to commit a sin, heard a voice say: “Stop! Where are you going?” He turned round and saw an image, in relief, of the sorrowful Mary, who drew out the sword that was in her breast and said to him: “Take this dagger and pierce my heart, rather than wound my Son with this sin.” At the sound of these words the youth prostrated himself on the ground and, with deep contrition, bursting into tears, asked and obtained from God and the Virgin the pardon of his sin.
Prayer
O Blessed Virgin, why are you afflicted, seeking your lost Son? Is it because you do not know where he is? But do you not know that he is in your heart? Do you not see that he feeds among the lilies? You yourself have said it: “My beloved to me, and I to him, who feedeth among the lilies” (Cant. 2:16). These—your humble, pure, and holy thoughts and affections—are all lilies that invite the divine Spouse to dwell with you. Ah, Mary, do you sigh after Jesus, you who love none but Jesus? Leave the sighing to me, and to so many other sinners who do not love him, and who have lost him by offending him. My most lovable Mother, if through my fault your Son has not yet returned to my soul, will you obtain for me the grace to find him? I know well that he allows himself to be found by all who seek him: “The Lord is good… to the soul that seeketh him” (Lam. 3:25). Make me seek him as I ought to seek him. You are the gate through which all find Jesus; through you I too hope to find him.
On the Fourth Dolor: The Meeting of Mary with Jesus When He Went to Death
St. Bernardine says that, to form an idea of Mary’s grief in losing her Jesus by death, we must consider the love this Mother bore to this her Son. All mothers feel the sufferings of their children as their own. Hence the woman of Canaan, when she begged the Savior to deliver her daughter from the devil that tormented her, said to him that he should have pity on the mother rather than on the daughter: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously troubled by a devil” (Matt. 15:22). But what mother ever loved a child so much as Mary loved Jesus? He was her only child, reared amid so many troubles and pains; a most lovable child, and most loving to his Mother; a Son who was at once her Son and her God, who came on earth to kindle in the hearts of all the holy fire of divine love, as he himself declared: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). Let us consider how he must have inflamed that pure heart of his holy Mother, so free from every earthly affection. In a word, the Blessed Virgin herself said to St. Bridget that through love her heart and the heart of her Son were one: Unum erat cor meum, et cor filii mei. That blending of handmaid and Mother, of Son and God, kindled in the heart of Mary a fire composed of a thousand flames. But afterward, at the time of the passion, this flame of love was changed into a sea of sorrow. Hence St. Bernardine says: all the sorrows of the world united would not equal the sorrow of the glorious Mary. Yes; for this Mother, as St. Lawrence Justinian writes, the more tenderly she loved, the more deeply was she wounded. The greater the tenderness with which she loved him, the greater was her grief at the sight of his sufferings—especially when she met her Son, after he had already been condemned, going to death at the place of execution, bearing the cross. And this is the fourth sword of sorrow that we have to consider today.
The Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Bridget that, as the time of our Lord’s passion drew near, her eyes were always filled with tears as she thought of her beloved Son, whom she was about to lose on this earth; and that, as she also said, a cold sweat covered her body from the fear that seized her at the prospect of that approaching suffering. At length the appointed day arrived, and Jesus came in tears to take leave of his Mother before he went to death. St. Bonaventure, contemplating Mary on that night, says: You spent it without sleep, and while others slept, you remained watching. When morning came, the disciples of Jesus Christ came to this afflicted Mother, one to bring her this piece of news, another that—but all tidings of sorrow; for in her were then verified the words of Jeremias: “Weeping she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her” (Lam. 1:2). One came to relate to her the cruel treatment of her Son in the house of Caiphas; another, the insults he had received from Herod. Finally—for I omit the rest, to come to my point—St. John came and announced to Mary that the most unjust Pilate had already condemned him to death upon the cross. I say most unjust; for, as St. Leo remarks, this unjust judge condemned him to death with the very lips with which he had pronounced him innocent. “Ah, sorrowful Mother,” said St. John to her, “your Son has already been condemned to death; he is already on his way, bearing his own cross to Calvary,” as the same St. John afterward related in his Gospel: “And bearing his own cross, he went forth to the place which is called Calvary” (John 19:17). “Come, if you wish to see him, and to bid him a last farewell in one of the streets through which he is to pass.”
Mary goes with St. John, and she perceives, by the blood with which the way was sprinkled, that her Son had already passed there. This she revealed to St. Bridget: “By the footprints of my Son I traced his course; for along the way by which he had passed, the ground was sprinkled with blood.” St. Bonaventure imagines the afflicted Mother taking a shorter way, and placing herself at a corner of the street to meet her afflicted Son as he passed. This most afflicted Mother met her most afflicted Son—Moestissima mater moestissimo filio occurrit, said St. Bernard. While Mary waited in that place, how much she must have heard said against her Son by the Jews who knew her—and perhaps also words in mockery of herself! Alas, what a beginning of sorrows was then before her eyes when she saw the nails, the hammers, the cords, the fatal instruments of her Son’s death, borne before him! And what a sword pierced her heart when she heard the trumpet proclaiming along the way the sentence pronounced against her Son! But behold, now, after the instruments, the trumpet, and the officers of justice had passed, she raises her eyes and sees—she sees, O God, a young man covered with blood and wounds from head to foot, with a crown of thorns on his head and two heavy beams on his shoulders. She looks at him and hardly knows him, saying then with Isaias: “And we have seen him, and there was no sightliness” (Isa. 53:2). Yes; for the wounds, the bruises, and the clotted blood made him look like a leper: “We have thought him, as it were, a leper” (Isa. 53:4); so that he could no longer be recognized. “And his look was, as it were, hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not” (Isa. 53:3). But at length love recognizes him; and as soon as she knows him—ah, what then, as St. Peter of Alcantara says in his meditations, was the love and the fear in the heart of Mary! On the one hand she longed to see him; on the other, she could not endure to look upon so pitiable a sight. But at length they look at each other. The Son wipes from his eyes the clotted blood that prevented him from seeing (as was revealed to St. Bridget), and looks upon his Mother; the Mother looks upon her Son. Ah, looks of sorrow, which pierced, as with so many arrows, those two holy and loving souls! When Margaret, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, met her father on his way to the scaffold, she could utter only two words—“O father! O father!”—and fell fainting at his feet. At the sight of her Son going to Calvary, Mary did not faint; no, because it was not fitting that his Mother should lose the use of her reason, as Father Suarez remarks; nor did she die, for God reserved her for a greater grief. But if she did not die, she suffered sorrow enough to cause her a thousand deaths.
The Mother wished to embrace him, as St. Anselm says, but the officers of justice thrust her aside, loading her with insults, and urged our afflicted Lord onward. Mary follows. Ah, holy Virgin, where are you going? To Calvary! And can you trust yourself to see him who is your life hanging from a cross? “And thy life shall be as it were hanging before thee” (Deut. 28:66). Ah, my Mother, stop, says St. Lawrence Justinian, as if the Son himself had then spoken to her; where do you hasten? Where are you going? If you come where I go, you will be tortured with my sufferings, and I with yours. But although the sight of her dying Jesus must cost her such cruel anguish, the loving Mary will not leave him. The Son goes before, and the Mother follows, that she may be crucified with her Son, as William the Abbot says: the Mother took up her cross and followed him, that she might be crucified with him. We pity even the wild beasts—Ferarum etiam miseremur, as St. John Chrysostom has said. If we should see a lioness following her cub as he was led to death, even this wild beast would call forth our compassion. And shall we not feel compassion to see Mary following her immaculate Lamb as they lead him to death? Let us, then, pity her, and let us strive also ourselves to accompany her Son and herself, bearing with patience the cross the Lord lays upon us. Why did Jesus Christ, asks St. John Chrysostom, wish to be alone in his other sufferings, but in bearing the cross wished to be helped by the Cyrenean? And he answers: That you may understand that the cross of Christ is not enough without yours. The cross of Jesus alone is not sufficient to save us, if we do not bear with resignation our own also, even unto death.
Example
The Savior appeared one day to Sister Diomira, a nun in Florence, and said to her: “Think of me and love me, and I will think of you and love you.” And at the same time he presented her with a bunch of flowers and a cross, signifying by this that the consolations of the saints on this earth are always to be accompanied by the cross. The cross unites souls to God. Blessed Jerome Emiliani, when he was a soldier leading a very sinful life, was shut up by his enemies in a tower. There, feeling his misfortune deeply, and enlightened by God to amend his life, he had recourse to the most holy Mary; and then, with the help of this divine Mother, he began to live the life of a saint. By this he merited to see one day in heaven the high place God had prepared for him. He became the founder of the Order of the Somaschi, died a saint, and has lately been beatified and canonized by holy Church.
Prayer
My sorrowful Mother, by the merit of that grief you felt at seeing your beloved Jesus led to death, obtain for me the grace to bear with patience the crosses God sends me. Happy am I, if I too shall know how to accompany you with my cross until death. You and Jesus, both innocent, have borne a heavy cross; and shall I, a sinner who have deserved hell, refuse mine? Ah, immaculate Virgin, I hope that you will help me to bear my crosses with patience. Amen.
On the Fifth Dolor: The Death of Jesus
And now we have to behold a new kind of martyrdom: a Mother condemned to see an innocent Son, whom she loved with all the affection of her heart, put to death before her eyes by the most barbarous tortures. “There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother”—Stabat autem juxta crucem mater ejus (John 19:25). There is nothing more to be said of the martyrdom of Mary, says St. John: behold her at the foot of the cross, looking upon her dying Son; and then see whether there is any grief like her grief. Let us, then, stop today also on Calvary, to consider this fifth sword that pierced the heart of Mary: the death of Jesus.
As soon as our afflicted Redeemer had ascended the hill of Calvary, the executioners stripped him of his garments and, piercing his sacred hands and feet with nails—not sharp, but blunt, non acutis, sed obtusis, as St. Bernard says, the more to torture him—they fastened him to the cross. When they had crucified him, they planted the cross, and so left him to die. The executioners abandon him, but Mary does not abandon him. She draws nearer to the cross, to be present at his death. “I did not leave him,” the Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Bridget, “but stood nearer to his cross.” But what did it avail, O Lady, says St. Bonaventure, to go to Calvary to witness there the death of this Son? Shame should have held you back, for his disgrace was also yours, since you were his Mother; or at least the horror of such a crime as that of seeing a God crucified by his own creatures should have held you back. But the saint himself answers: Your heart did not consider the horror, but the suffering—Non considerabat cor tuum horrorem, sed dolorem. Ah, your heart cared then not for its own sorrow, but for the suffering and death of your dear Son; and therefore you yourself wished to be near him, at least to have compassion on him. Ah, true Mother, says William the Abbot, loving Mother—for not even the terror of death could separate you from your beloved Son! But, O God, what a spectacle of sorrow, to see this Son in agony upon the cross, and beneath the cross this Mother in agony, who was suffering all the pain her Son was suffering! Behold the words in which Mary revealed to St. Bridget the pitiable state of her dying Son as she saw him on the cross: “My dear Jesus was on the cross in grief and in agony; his eyes were sunken, half closed, and lifeless; his lips hung, and his mouth was open; his cheeks were hollow and drawn against his teeth; his face was drawn, his nose sharp, his countenance sad; his head had fallen upon his breast, his hair was black with blood, his stomach was collapsed, his arms and legs were stiff, and his whole body was covered with wounds and blood.”
Mary also suffered all these pains of Jesus. Every torture inflicted on the body of Jesus, says St. Jerome, was a wound in the heart of his Mother. Any one of us who had then been on Mount Calvary would have seen two altars, says St. John Chrysostom, on which two great sacrifices were being consummated: one in the body of Jesus, the other in the heart of Mary. But rather would I see there, with St. Bonaventure, one altar only—namely, the cross alone of the Son—on which, together with the victim, this divine Lamb, the Mother also was sacrificed. Therefore the saint questions her in these words: O Lady, where are you? Near the cross? No—on the cross, crucified with your Son! St. Augustine says the same: the cross and nails of the Son were also the cross and nails of the Mother; while Christ was being crucified, the Mother too was crucified. Yes; for, as St. Bernard says, love inflicted on the heart of Mary the same suffering the nails caused in the body of Jesus. Therefore, at the same time that the Son was sacrificing his body, the Mother, as St. Bernardine says, was sacrificing her soul.
Mothers flee from the presence of their dying children; but if a mother is ever obliged to witness the death of a child, she procures him every relief she can; she arranges the bed so that his posture may be easier; she administers him refreshments; and thus the poor mother relieves her own sorrow. Ah, Mother, most afflicted of all mothers! O Mary, it was decreed that you should be present at the death of Jesus, but it was not granted you to afford him any relief. Mary heard her Son say, “I thirst”—Sitio—but she was not permitted to give him a little water to quench his great thirst. She could only say to him, as St. Vincent Ferrer remarks: My Son, I have only the water of my tears—Fili, non habeo nisi aquam lacrymarum. She saw that her Son, suspended by three nails on that bed of sorrow, could find no rest. She longed to clasp him to her heart, to give him relief, or at least that he might expire in her arms; but she could not. She only saw that poor Son in a sea of sorrow, seeking one who might console him, as he had foretold by the mouth of the prophet: “I have trodden the winepress alone… I looked about, and there was none to help; I sought, and there was none to give aid” (Isa. 63:3, 5). But who among men was there to console him, if all were his enemies? Even on the cross they cursed and mocked him on every side: “And they that passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads” (Matt. 27:39). Some said to him: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Some exclaimed: “He saved others; himself he cannot save.” Others said: “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross.” The Blessed Virgin herself said to St. Bridget: “I heard some call my Son a thief; I heard others call him an impostor; others said that no one deserved death more than he; and every word was to me a new sword of sorrow.”
But what most increased the sorrows Mary suffered through compassion for her Son was to hear him complain on the cross that even the eternal Father had abandoned him: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Words which, as the divine Mother herself said to St. Bridget, could never depart from her mind during her whole life. Thus the afflicted Mother saw her Jesus suffering on every side; she longed to comfort him, but could not. And what caused her the greatest sorrow was to see that, by her presence and her grief, she increased the sufferings of her Son. The very sorrow, says St. Bernard, that filled the heart of Mary increased the bitterness of sorrow in the heart of Jesus. St. Bernard also says that Jesus on the cross suffered more from compassion for his Mother than from his own pains; and he speaks thus in the name of the Virgin: I stood and looked upon him, and he looked upon me; and he suffered more for me than for himself. The same saint, speaking of Mary beside her dying Son, says that she lived dying without being able to die: Near the cross stood his Mother, and no voice was left her; living, she died; dying, she lived; nor could she die, because, though yet alive, she was already dead. Passino writes that Jesus Christ himself, speaking one day to the Blessed Battista Varani of Camerino, told her that he was so afflicted on the cross at the sight of his Mother in such anguish at his feet, that compassion for his Mother caused him to die without consolation. So that the Blessed Battista, enlightened to know this suffering of Jesus, exclaimed: O my Lord, tell me no more of this your sorrow, for I cannot bear it.
Men were astonished, says Simon of Cassia, when they saw this Mother keep silence, uttering no complaint in so great a suffering. But if the lips of Mary were silent, her heart was not; for she did not cease offering to the divine justice the life of her Son for our salvation. Therefore we know that by the merits of her dolors she cooperated with Christ in bringing us forth to the life of grace, and so we are the children of her sorrows. Christ, says Lanspergius, wished her whom he had appointed for our Mother to cooperate with him in our redemption; for she herself, at the foot of the cross, was to bring us forth as her children. And if ever any consolation entered into that sea of bitterness, the heart of Mary, it was this one alone: the knowledge that by means of her sorrows she was bringing us to eternal salvation. As Jesus himself revealed to St. Bridget: “My Mother Mary, on account of her compassion and charity, was made the Mother of all in heaven and on earth.” And indeed these were the last words with which Jesus took leave of her before his death; this was his last remembrance, when he left us to her for her children in the person of John, saying: “Woman, behold thy son”—Mulier, ecce filius tuus (John 19:26). And from that time Mary began to perform for us this office of a good mother; for, as St. Peter Damian declares, the penitent thief, through the prayers of Mary, was then converted and saved: the good thief repented because the Blessed Virgin, standing between the cross of her Son and that of the thief, prayed her Son for him; thus rewarding, by this favor, his former service. For, as other authors also relate, this thief, in the journey to Egypt with the infant Jesus, had shown them kindness; and this same office the Blessed Virgin has ever continued, and still continues, to perform.
Example
A young man in Perugia once promised the devil that, if he would help him commit a sinful act he desired to do, he would give him his soul; and he gave him a writing to that effect, signed with his blood. The evil deed was done, and the devil demanded the fulfillment of the promise. He led the young man to a well and threatened to take him body and soul to hell if he would not cast himself in. The wretched youth, thinking it impossible to escape from his enemy, climbed the side of the well in order to throw himself down; but, terrified at the thought of death, he told the devil that he had not the courage to throw himself in, and that, if he wished to see him dead, he himself should thrust him in. The young man wore about his neck the scapular of the sorrowing Mary, and the devil said to him: “Take off that scapular, and I will thrust you in.” But the youth, seeing the protection the divine Mother still gave him through that scapular, refused to take it off; and after a great deal of altercation, the devil departed in confusion. The sinner repented; and, grateful to his sorrowful Mother, he went to thank her, and offered a picture of this event at her altar in the church of Santa Maria Nuova in Perugia.
Prayer
Ah, Mother, most afflicted of all mothers, your Son, then, is dead—your Son so lovable, who loved you so much! Weep, for you have reason to weep. Who can ever console you? Nothing can console you but the thought that Jesus, by his death, has conquered hell, has opened paradise, which was closed to men, and has won so many souls. From that throne of the cross he was to reign over so many hearts, which, conquered by his love, would serve him with love. Do not disdain, O my Mother, to keep me near you, to weep with you; for I have more reason than you to weep, for the offenses I have committed against your Son. Ah, Mother of mercy, I hope for pardon and for my eternal salvation, first through the death of my Redeemer, and then through the merits of your dolors. Amen.
On the Sixth Dolor: The Piercing of the Side of Jesus, and His Descent from the Cross
“O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow” (Lam. 1:12). Devout souls, listen to what the sorrowful Mary says to you today: My beloved children, I do not wish you to console me; no, for my heart can never again be consoled on this earth after the death of my dear Jesus. If you wish to please me, this I ask of you: turn to me, and see whether there has ever been in the world a grief like mine, when I saw him who was all my love torn from me so cruelly. But, O Lady, since you do not wish to be consoled, and have such a thirst for suffering, I must tell you that your sorrows did not end with the death of your Son. Today you will be pierced by another sword of sorrow, when you shall see a cruel lance piercing the side of this your Son, already dead, and shall receive him in your arms after he is taken down from the cross. And so today we are to consider the sixth dolor that afflicted this sorrowful Mother. Attend, and weep. Hitherto the dolors of Mary tortured her one by one; but today they are all united to assail her.
To make known to a mother that her child is dead is enough to kindle her whole soul with love for the lost one. Some persons, to lighten such grief, will remind mothers whose children have died of the displeasure those children once caused them. But if I, O my Queen, wished to lighten your sorrow for the death of Jesus in this way, what displeasure has he ever caused you that I could recall to your mind? Ah, no; he always loved you, obeyed you, and reverenced you. Now you have lost him, and who can describe your sorrow? Do you, who have felt it, explain it. A devout author says that, when our Redeemer was dead, the heart of the great Mother was first occupied in accompanying the most holy soul of her Son and presenting it to the eternal Father. I present to you, O my God, Mary must then have said, the immaculate soul of your Son and mine, who has been obedient to you even unto death; receive it, then, into your arms. Your justice is now satisfied, your will accomplished; behold, the great sacrifice to your eternal glory is consummated. And then, turning to the lifeless members of her Jesus: O wounds, she said, O loving wounds, I adore you, I rejoice with you, since through you salvation has been given to the world. You shall remain open in the body of my Son, to be the refuge of those who will have recourse to you. Oh, how many, through you, shall receive the pardon of their sins, and then through you be inflamed to love the Sovereign Good!
That the joy of the Paschal Sabbath that followed might not be disturbed, the Jews wished the body of Jesus to be taken down from the cross; but since they could not take down a condemned man until he was dead, they came with iron mallets to break his legs, as they had already done to the two thieves crucified with him. And Mary, while she remains weeping over the death of her Son, sees those armed men coming toward her Jesus. At this sight she first trembled with fear; then she said: Ah, my Son is already dead; cease to maltreat him, and cease to torture me, a poor mother, any longer. She implored them not to break his legs—Oravit eos, ne frangerent crura, as St. Bonaventure writes. But while she is yet speaking—O God!—she sees a soldier violently brandish a spear and pierce the side of Jesus: “One of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). The cross shook at the stroke of the spear, and, as was revealed to St. Bridget, the heart of Jesus was divided in two: ita ut ambae partes essent divisae. There came out blood and water; for only a few drops of blood remained, and these too the Savior wished to shed, to show that he had no more blood to give us. The injury of that stroke was offered to Jesus, but the pain was inflicted on Mary. Christ, says the devout Lanspergius, shared with his Mother the wounding of that blow: for he received the insult, and his Mother the pain. The holy Fathers explain this to be the very sword foretold to the Virgin by St. Simeon—a sword not of iron, but of grief, which pierced her blessed soul through the heart of Jesus, where it always dwelt. So, among others, St. Bernard says: The spear that opened his side passed through the soul of the Virgin, which could not be torn away from the heart of Jesus. And the divine Mother herself revealed the same to St. Bridget, saying: “When the spear was drawn out, its point appeared red with blood; then I felt as if my heart were pierced, when I saw the heart of my most dear Son pierced.” The angel told St. Bridget that such were Mary’s sufferings that she was saved from death only by the miraculous power of God. In her other dolors she had at least her Son to have compassion on her; now she had not even him to take pity on her.
The afflicted Mother, still fearing that other injuries might be inflicted on her Son, entreats Joseph of Arimathea to obtain from Pilate the body of her Jesus, so that at least after his death she may guard it and protect it from injury. Joseph went to Pilate and made known to him the sorrow and the wish of this afflicted Mother; and St. Anselm thinks that compassion for the Mother softened the heart of Pilate and moved him to grant her the body of the Savior. And now Jesus is taken down from the cross. O most holy Virgin, after you had with so great love given your Son to the world for our salvation, behold, the world returns him to you again! But, O my God, how do you return him to me? said Mary to the world. My Son was white and ruddy—Dilectus meus candidus et rubicundus (Cant. 5:10)—but you have returned him to me blackened with bruises, and red, not with a ruddy color, but with the wounds you have inflicted on him. He was beautiful; now there is no more beauty in him; he is all disfigurement. All were enamored of his aspect; now he excites horror in all who look upon him. Oh, how many swords, says St. Bonaventure, pierced the soul of this Mother when she received the body of her Son after it was taken down from the cross—O quot gladii animam matris pertransierunt! Let us consider what anguish it would cause any mother to receive the lifeless body of her son! It was revealed to St. Bridget that, to take down the body of Jesus, three ladders were placed against the cross. The holy disciples first drew the nails out of the hands and feet and, according to Metaphrastes, gave them into the keeping of Mary. Then one supported the upper part of the body of Jesus, the other the lower, and so they took it down from the cross. Bernardine de Bustis describes the afflicted Mother rising and stretching out her arms to meet her dear Son; she embraces him, and then sits down at the foot of the cross. She sees his mouth open, his eyes closed; she examines the lacerated flesh and the exposed bones; she takes off the crown and sees the cruel wound those thorns had made in that sacred head; she looks upon those pierced hands and feet and says: Ah, my Son, to what has the love you bore to men reduced you! But what evil had you done them, that they have treated you so cruelly? You were my father (Bernardine de Bustis imagines her saying), my brother, my spouse, my delight, my glory, my all. O my Son, behold how I am afflicted; look upon me and console me. But you look upon me no more. Speak, speak but one word to me, and console me. But you speak no more, for you are dead. Then, turning to those barbarous instruments, she said: O cruel thorns, O nails, O merciless spear, how could you thus torture your Creator? But what thorns, what nails? Alas, sinners, she exclaimed, it is you who have thus cruelly treated my Son! Thus Mary spoke, and complained of us. But if she were now capable of suffering, what would she say? What grief would she feel to see that men, even after the death of her Son, continue to torment and crucify him by their sins! Let us no longer give pain to this sorrowful Mother; and if we too have hitherto grieved her by our sins, let us now do what she bids us. She says to us: “Return, ye transgressors, to the heart” (Isa. 46:8). Sinners, return to the wounded heart of my Jesus; return as penitents, for he will receive you. Flee from him to him, she goes on to say, with Guerric the Abbot—from the Judge to the Redeemer, from the tribunal to the cross. The Virgin herself revealed to St. Bridget that she closed the eyes of her Son when he was taken down from the cross, but could not close his arms—Ejus brachia flectere non potui—Jesus Christ giving us to understand by this that he wished to remain with open arms to receive all penitent sinners who return to him. O world, Mary continues, behold, then, your time is the time of lovers: Et ecce tempus tuum, tempus amantium. Now that my Son, O world, has died to save you, this is no longer for you a time of fear, but of love—a time to love him who willed to suffer so much to show you the love he bore you. Therefore, says St. Bernard, the heart of Jesus is wounded, that through the visible wound the invisible wound of love may be seen. If, then, concludes Mary, in the words of the Abbot of Celles, my Son willed his side to be opened that he might give you his heart, it is right, O man, that you should give him your heart. And if you wish, O children of Mary, to find a place in the heart of Jesus without fear of being cast out, go, says Ubertino of Casale, go with Mary, for she will obtain grace for you; and in the following example we have a beautiful proof of this.
Example
The Disciple relates that there was once a poor sinner who, among other crimes, had killed his father and a brother, and so became a fugitive. Happening to hear one day during Lent a sermon on the divine mercy, he went to the preacher himself to make his confession. The confessor, having heard his crimes, sent him to an altar of the sorrowful Mother to pray that she might obtain for him compunction and the pardon of his sins. The sinner obeyed and began to pray, when, behold, suddenly overpowered by contrition, he fell down dead. The following day, when the priest recommended the deceased to the prayers of the people, a white dove appeared in the church and let fall a slip of paper at the priest’s feet. He took it up and found these words written on it: “The soul of the dead man, when it left the body, went at once to paradise; and do you continue to preach the infinite mercy of God.”
Prayer
O afflicted Virgin! O soul great in virtues, and great also in sorrows—for both arise from that great fire of love you have for God, you whose heart can love nothing but God! Ah, Mother, have pity on me, for I have not loved God, and I have so greatly offended him. Your sorrows give me great confidence to hope for pardon. But this is not enough: I wish to love my Lord; and who can better obtain this for me than you, who are the Mother of fair love? Ah, Mary, you who console all, comfort me also. Amen.
On the Seventh Dolor: The Burial of the Body of Jesus
When a mother is beside a suffering and dying child, she no doubt feels and suffers all his pains; but when the afflicted child is really dead and about to be buried, and the sorrowful mother takes her last leave of him, O God, the thought that she is to see him no more is a sorrow that surpasses all other sorrows. Behold the last sword of sorrow we are to consider: when Mary, after being present at the death of her Son upon the cross, and after having embraced his lifeless body, was finally to leave him in the sepulcher, never more to enjoy his beloved presence.
But that we may better understand this last dolor, let us return to Calvary, to look again upon the afflicted Mother, who still holds, clasped in her arms, the lifeless body of her Son. O my Son, she seems then to go on saying, in the words of Job, my Son, you are changed to be cruel toward me: Mutatus es mihi in crudelem (Job 30:21). Yes; for all your beauty, grace, virtue, and loveliness, all the marks of special love you have shown me, all the singular favors you have bestowed on me, are now all changed into so many darts of sorrow, which, the more they inflamed my love for you, so much the more cruelly make me feel the pain of having lost you. Ah, my beloved Son, in losing you I have lost all. Thus St. Bernard speaks in her name: O truly begotten of God, you were to me a father, a son, a spouse; you were my very life! Now I am bereft of my father, widowed of my spouse, desolate of my Son; for with my Son, whom I have lost, I lose all things.
Thus Mary, clinging to her Son, was dissolved in grief; but those holy disciples, fearing that this poor Mother might expire there in her agony, went to take the body of her Son from her arms, to bear it away for burial. Therefore, with reverent force, they took him from her arms; and having embalmed him, they wrapped him in a linen cloth already prepared—upon which our Lord willed to leave to the world his image impressed, as may be seen to this day in Turin. And now they bear him to the sepulcher. The sorrowful funeral procession sets out: the disciples place him on their shoulders; hosts of angels from heaven accompany him; those holy women follow him; and the afflicted Mother, in their company, follows her Son to the grave. When they had reached the appointed place, how gladly would Mary have buried herself there alive with her Son! “Oh, how willingly,” said the Virgin to St. Bridget, “would I have remained there alive with my Son, had it been his will!” But since this was not the divine will, authors relate that she herself accompanied the sacred body of Jesus into the sepulcher, where, as Baronius narrates, they laid the nails and the crown of thorns. In raising the stone to close the sepulcher, the disciples of the Savior had to turn to the Virgin and say to her: Now, O Lady, we must close the sepulcher; have patience, look upon your Son, and take leave of him for the last time. Then, O my beloved Son, the afflicted Mother must have said, then shall I see you no more? Receive, then, this last time that I look upon you; receive the last farewell from me, your dear Mother; and receive my heart, which I leave buried with you. The Virgin, says St. Fulgentius, earnestly desired that her soul might be buried with the body of Christ. And Mary herself made this revelation to St. Bridget: “I can truly say that at the burial of my Son one sepulcher contained, as it were, two hearts.”
Finally, they take the stone and close up in the holy sepulcher the body of Jesus, that great treasure, greater than any in heaven or on earth. And here let us remark that Mary left her heart buried with Jesus, because Jesus was all her treasure: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). And where shall we keep our hearts buried? With creatures? In the mire? And why not with Jesus, who, although he has ascended to heaven, has willed to remain—not dead, but alive—in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, precisely that he may have with him and possess our hearts? But let us return to Mary. Before quitting the sepulcher, according to St. Bonaventure, she blessed that sacred stone, saying: O happy stone, you that now enclose that body which was contained nine months in my womb, I bless you and envy you; I leave you to guard my Son for me, who is my only good, my only love. And then, turning to the eternal Father, she said: O Father, to you I commend him, who is your Son and mine. And so, bidding a last farewell to her Son and to the sepulcher, she returned to her own house. This poor Mother went away so afflicted and sad, according to St. Bernard, that she moved many to tears even against their will—Multos etiam invitos ad lacrymas provocabat; so that wherever she passed, all who met her wept—Omnes plorabant qui obviabant ei—and could not restrain their tears. And he adds that those holy disciples and the women who accompanied her mourned for her even more than for their Lord.
St. Bonaventure says that her two sisters covered her with a mourning cloak: the sisters of our Lady wrapped her in a veil as a widow, covering, as it were, her whole face. And he also says that, passing on her return before the cross, still wet with the blood of her Jesus, she was the first to adore it: O holy cross, she exclaimed, I kiss you and adore you; for you are no longer an infamous wood, but a throne of love and an altar of mercy, consecrated by the blood of the divine Lamb who has been sacrificed upon you for the salvation of the world. She then leaves the cross and returns to her house; and there the afflicted Mother casts her eyes around and no longer sees her Jesus; but instead of the presence of her dear Son, all the memorials of his holy life and cruel death are before her. There she is reminded of the embraces she gave her Son in the stable of Bethlehem, of the company she kept with him for so many years in the workshop of Nazareth; she is reminded of their mutual affection, of his loving looks, of the words of eternal life that came forth from that divine mouth. And then comes before her the fatal scene of that very day: she sees those nails, those thorns, that lacerated flesh of her Son, those deep wounds, those bare bones, that open mouth, those closed eyes. Alas, what a night of sorrow was that night for Mary! The sorrowful Mother turned to St. John and said mournfully: Ah, John, where is your Master? Then she asked of Magdalen: Daughter, tell me, where is your beloved? O God, who has taken him from us? Mary weeps, and all who are with her weep. And you, O my soul, do you not weep? Ah, turn to Mary and say to her, with St. Bonaventure: Let me, O my Lady, let me weep; you are innocent, I am guilty. At least entreat her to permit you to weep with her: Fac ut tecum lugeam—“Grant that I may mourn with you.” She weeps for love, and you weep through sorrow for your sins. And weeping thus, you may have the happy lot of the man of whom we read in the following example.
Example
Father Engelgrave relates that a certain religious was so tormented by scruples that sometimes he was almost driven to despair; but, having great devotion to Mary, the Mother of Sorrows, he had recourse to her in the agony of his spirit and was much comforted by contemplating her dolors. Death came, and the devil tormented him more than ever with scruples and tempted him to despair. When, behold, our merciful Mother, seeing her poor son so afflicted, appeared to him and said: “And why, O my son, are you so overcome with sorrow—you who have so often consoled me by your compassion for my sorrows? Be comforted,” she said to him; “Jesus sends me to you to console you. Be comforted, rejoice, and come with me to paradise.” And at these words the devout religious tranquilly expired, full of consolation and confidence.
Prayer
My afflicted Mother, I will not leave you alone to weep; no, I wish to keep you company with my tears. This grace I ask of you today: obtain for me a continual remembrance of the passion of Jesus and of your own, and a tender devotion to them, so that all the remaining days of my life may be spent in weeping for your sorrows, O my Mother, and for those of my Redeemer. I hope that these dolors will give me the confidence and strength not to despair at the hour of my death, at the sight of the offenses I have committed against my Lord. By them must I obtain pardon, perseverance, and paradise, where I hope to rejoice with you and sing the infinite mercy of my God through all eternity. Thus I hope; thus may it be. Amen, amen.
Whoever wishes to practice the devotion of reciting the chaplet of the dolors of Mary will find it in the Appendix at the end of this book, as the Little Rosary of the Seven Dolors of Mary. I composed it many years ago, and insert it here anew for the convenience of the servants of Mary, whom I beg in their charity to commend me to her when they meditate upon her dolors.
O Lady, who steal the hearts of men with your sweetness, have you not stolen mine? O thief of hearts, when will you give me back my heart? Govern it together with your own, and place it in the side of your Son. Then I shall possess what I hope for, because you are our hope.
Points for Reflection
1. “If Mary wept three days for the absence of her Son, how ought sinners to weep who have lost the divine grace.”
2. “The cross of Jesus alone is not sufficient to save us, if we do not bear with resignation our own also, even unto death.”
3. “If, then, my Son willed his side to be opened that he might give you his heart, it is right, O man, that you should give him your heart.”