Mater Dolorosa

Mater Dolorosa. J-J Tissot

From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

We all know the beautiful and hear-rending hymn dedicated by the mediæval Church to the Virgin Mother: 

At the cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
All His bitter anguish bearing,
Now at length the sword had pass'd.

Oh, how sad and sore distress'd
Was that Mother highly blest
Of the sole-begotten One!

Christ above in torment hangs;
She beneath beholds the pangs
Of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
Whelm'd in miseries so deep
Christ's dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain
From partaking in her pain,
In that Mother's pain untold?

Bruis'd, derided, curs'd, defil'd,
She beheld her tender child
All with bloody scourges rent.

For the sins of His own nation,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above;
Make my heart with thine accord.

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
Make my soul to glow and melt
With the love of Christ our Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through;
In my heart each wound renew
Of my Saviour crucified.

Let me share with thee His pain,
Who for all my sins was slain,
Who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
Mourning Him who mourn'd for me,
All the days that I may live.

By the cross with thee to stay,
There with thee to weep and pray,
Is all I ask of thee to give.

The first strophe of this hymn has decided once for all in the popular imagination the attitude of Mary at Golgotha: stabat, it says, or, she stood.  It is, however, difficult to believe that she really maintained this stoical attitude.  Mary was a woman, and the fact of the strength given her from above would not save her any more than it did her divine Son, from the shrinking from suffering natural to humanity.  Jesus had prostrated Himself upon the ground at Gethsemane, and Mary doubtless sank down more than once on Calvary, and needed the ministrations of Saint John and the Holy Women to support and restore her.  It is even said that once she was led by them away from the platform, quite overcome and trembling with anguish.  But for this absence of His Mother, temporary though it was, it would have seemed as if Jesus would have been spared one terrible ordeal: that of finding himself alone, forsaken alike, apparently, by Heaven and earth.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam