Of The Dolours of Mary, By St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Part 2.

Thus was our Blessed Lady, through the compassion of her loving heart for her Son, scourged, crowned with thorns, insulted, and nailed to the cross. Whence the same Saint, considering Mary on Mount Calvary, present at the death of her Son, questions her in these words: “O Lady, tell me where didst thou stand? Was it only at the foot of the cross? Ah, much more than this, thou wast on the cross itself, crucified with thy Son.” Richard of Saint Lawrence, on the words of the Redeemer, spoken by Isaias the prophet, “I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me,” says, “It is true, O Lord, that in the work of human redemption Thou didst suffer alone, and that there was not a man who sufficiently pitied Thee; but there was a woman with Thee, and she was Thine own Mother; she suffered in her heart all that Thou didst endure in Thy body.”

But all this is saying too little of Mary’s sorrows, since, as I have already observed, she suffered more in witnessing the sufferings of her beloved Jesus than if she had herself endured all the outrages and death of her Son. Erasmus, speaking of parents in general, says, that “they are more cruelly tormented by their children’s sufferings than by their own.” This is not always true, but in Mary it evidently was so; for it is certain that she loved her Son and His life beyond all comparison more than herself or a thousand lives of her own. Therefore Blessed Amadeus rightly affirms, that “the afflicted Mother, at the sorrowful sight of the torments of her beloved Jesus, suffered far more than she would have done had she herself endured His whole Passion.” The reason is evident, for, as Saint Bernard says, “the soul is more where it loves than where it lives.” Our Lord Himself had already said the same thing: “where our treasure is, there also is our heart.” If Mary, then, by love, lived more in her Son than in herself, she must have endured far greater torments in the sufferings and death of her Son than she would have done, had the most cruel death in the world been inflicted upon her.
Here we must reflect on another circumstance which rendered the martyrdom of Mary beyond all comparison greater than the torments of all the martyrs: it is that in the Passion of Jesus she suffered much, and she suffered, moreover, without the least alleviation. The martyrs suffered under the torments inflicted on them by tyrants; but the love of Jesus rendered their pains sweet and agreeable. A Saint Vincent was tortured on a rack, torn with pincers, burnt with red-hot iron plates; but, as Saint Augustine remarks, “it seemed as if it was one who suffered, and another who spoke.” The Saint addressed the tyrant with such energy and contempt for his torments, that it seemed as if one Vincent suffered and another spoke; so greatly did God strengthen him with the sweetness of His love in the midst of all she endured. A Saint Boniface had his body torn with iron hooks; sharp-pointed reeds were thrust between his nails and flesh; melted lead was poured into his mouth; and in the midst of all he could not tire saying “I give Thee thanks, O Lord Jesus Christ.” A Saint Mark and a Saint Marcellinus were bound to a stake, their feet pierced with nails; and when the tyrant addressed them, saying, “Wretches, see to what a state you are reduced; save yourselves from these torments,” they answered: “Of what pains, of what torments dost thou speak? We never enjoyed so luxurious a banquet as in the present moment, in which we joyfully suffer for the love of Jesus Christ.” A Saint Lawrence suffered; but when roasting on the gridiron, “the interior flame of love,” says Saint Leo, “was more powerful in consoling his soul than the flame without in torturing his body.” Hence love tendered him so courageous that he mocked the tyrant, saying, “If thou desirest to feed on my flesh, a part is sufficiently roasted; turn it, and eat.” But how, in the midst of so many torments, in that prolonged death, could the Saint thus rejoice? “Ah!” replies Saint Augustine, “inebriated with the wine of Divine love, he felt neither torments nor death.”

So that the more the holy martyrs loved Jesus, the less did they feel their torments and death; and the sight alone of the sufferings of a crucified God was sufficient to console them. But was our suffering Mother also consoled by love for her Son, and the sight of His torments? Ah, no; for this very Son who suffered was the whole cause of them, and the love she bore Him was her only and most cruel executioner; for Mary’s whole martyrdom consisted in beholding and pitying her innocent and beloved Son, who suffered so much. Hence, the greater was her love for Him, the more bitter and inconsolable was her grief. “ Great as the sea is thy destruction; who shall heal thee?” Ah, Queen of Heaven, love hath mitigated the sufferings of other martyrs, and healed their wounds; but who hath ever soothed thy bitter grief? Who hath ever healed the too cruel wounds of thy heart “Who shall heal thee,” since that very Son who could give thee consolation was, by His sufferings, the only cause of thine, and the love which thou didst bear Him was the whole ingredient of thy martyrdom. So that, as other martyrs, as Diez remarks, are all represented with the instruments of their sufferings-a Saint Paul with a sword, a Saint Andrew with a cross, a Saint Lawrence with a gridiron-Mary is represented with her dead Son in her arms; for Jesus Himself, and He alone, was the instrument of her martyrdom, by reason of the love she bore Him. Richard of Saint Victor confirms in a few words all that I have now said: “In other martyrs, the greatness of their love soothed the pains of their martyrdom; but in the Blessed Virgin, the greater was her love, the greater were her sufferings, the more cruel was her martyrdom.”

It is certain that the more we love a thing, the greater is the pain we feel in losing it. We are more afflicted at the loss of a brother than at that of a beast of burden; we are more grieved at the loss of a son than at that of a friend. Now, Cornelius à Lapide says, “that to understand the greatness of Mary’s grief at the death of her Son, we must understand the greatness of the love she bore Him.” But who can ever measure that love? Blessed Amadeus says that “in the heart of Mary were united two kinds of love for her Jesus-supernatural love, by which she loved Him as her God, and natural love, by which she loved Him as her Son.” So that these two loves became one; but so immense a love, that William of Paris even says that the Blessed Virgin “loved Him as much as it was possible for a pure creature to love Him.” Hence Richard of Saint Victor affirms that “as there was no love like her love, so there was no sorrow like her sorrow.” And if the love of Mary towards her Son was immense, immense also must have been her grief in losing Him by death. “Where there is the greatest love,” says Blessed Albert the Great, “there also is the greatest grief.”

Let us now imagine to ourselves the Divine Mother standing-near her Son expiring on the cross, and justly applying to herself the words of Jeremias, thus addressing us: “O all ye that pass by the way attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.” O you who spend your lives upon earth, and pity me not, stop awhile to look at me, now that I behold this beloved Son dying before my eyes; and then see if, amongst all those who are afflicted and tormented, a sorrow is to be found like unto my sorrow. “No, O most suffering of all mothers,” replies Saint Bonaventure, “no more bitter grief than thine can be found; for no son more dear than thine can be found.” Ah, “there never was a more amiable son in the world than Jesus,” says Richard of Saint Lawrence; “nor has there ever been a mother who more tenderly loved her son than Mary! But since there never has been in the world a love like unto Mary’s love, how can any sorrow be found like unto Mary’s sorrow?”

Therefore Saint Ildephonsus did not hesitate to assert, “to say that Mary’s sorrows were greater than all the torments of the martyrs united, was to say too little.” And Saint Anselm adds, that “the most cruel tortures inflicted on the holy martyrs were trifling, or as nothing in comparison with the martyrdom of Mary.” Saint Basil of Seleucia also writes, “that as the sun exceeds all the other planets in splendour, so did Mary’s sufferings exceed those of all the other martyrs.” A learned author concludes with a beautiful sentiment. He says that so great was the sorrow of this tender Mother in the Passion of Jesus, that she alone compassionated in a degree by any means adequate to its merits the death of a God made man.

But here Saint Bonaventure, addressing this Blessed Virgin, says, “And why, O Lady, didst thou also go to sacrifice thyself on Calvary? Was not a crucified God sufficient to redeem us, that thou, His Mother, wouldst also go to be crucified with Him?” Indeed, the death of Jesus was more than enough to save the world, and an infinity of worlds; but this good Mother, for the love she bore us, wished also to help the cause of our salvation with the merits of her sufferings, which she offered for us on Calvary. Therefore, Blessed Albert the Great says, “that as we are under great obligations to Jesus for His Passion endured for our love, so also are we under great obligations to Mary, for the martyrdom which she voluntarily suffered for our salvation in the death of her Son.” I say voluntarily, since, as Saint Agnes revealed to Saint Bridget, “our compassionate and benign Mother was satisfied rather to endure any torment than that our souls should not be redeemed, and be left in their former state of perdition.” And, indeed, we may say that Mary’s only relief in the midst of her great sorrow in the Passion of her Son, was to see the lost world redeemed by His death, and men who were His enemies reconciled with God. While grieving she rejoiced,” says Simon of Cassia, that a sacrifice was offered for the redemption of all, by which He who was angry was appeased.”

So great a love on the part of Mary deserves our gratitude, and that gratitude should be shown by at least meditating upon and pitying her in her sorrow. But she complained to Saint Bridget that very few did so, and that the greater part of the world lived in forgetfulness of them: “I look around at all who are on earth, to see if by chance there are any who pity me, and meditate upon my sorrows; and I find that there are very few. Therefore, my daughter, though I am forgotten by many, at least do thou not forget me; consider my anguish, and imitate, as far as thou canst, my grief.” To understand how pleasing it is to the Blessed Virgin that we should remember her dolours, we need only know that, in the year 1239, she appeared to seven devout clients of hers (who were afterwards founders of the religious order of the Servants of Mary), with a black garment in her hand, and desired them, if they wished to please her, often to meditate on her sorrows: for this purpose, and to remind them of her sorrows) she expressed her desire that in future they should wear that mourning dress. Jesus Christ Himself revealed to the Blessed Veronica da Binasco, that He is, as it were, more pleased in seeing His Mother compassionated than Himself; for thus He addressed her: “My daughter, tears shed for My Passion are dear to Me; but as I love My Mother Mary with an immense love, the meditation of the torments which she endured at My death is even more agreeable to Me.”

Wherefore the graces promised by Jesus to those who are devoted to the dolours of Mary are very great. Pelbert relates that it was revealed to Saint Elizabeth, that after the assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven, Saint John the Evangelist desired to see her again. The favour was granted him; his dear Mother appeared to him, and with her Jesus Christ also appeared; the Saint then heard Mary ask her Son to grant some special grace to all those who are devoted to her dolours. Jesus promised her four principal ones: First, that those who before death invoke the Divine Mother in the name of her sorrows should obtain true repentance of all their sins. Second, that He would protect all who have this devotion in their tribulations, and that He would protect them especially at the hour of death. Third, that He would impress upon their minds the remembrance of His Passion, and that they should have their reward for it in heaven. Fourth, that He would commit such devout clients to the hands of Mary, with the power to dispose of them in whatever manner she might please, and to obtain for them all the graces she might desire. In proof of this, let us see, in the following example, how greatly devotion to the dolours of Mary aids in obtaining eternal salvation.

EXAMPLE

In the revelations of Saint Bridget we read that there was a rich man, as noble by birth as he was vile and sinful in his habits. He had given himself, by an express compact, as a slave to the devil; and for sixty successive years had served him, leading such a life as may be imagined, and never approaching the sacraments. Now this prince was dying; and Jesus Christ, to show him mercy, commanded Saint Bridget to tell her confessor to go and visit him, and exhort him to confess his sins. The confessor went, and the sick man said that he did not require confession, as he had often approached the sacrament of penance. The priest went a second time; but this poor slave of hell persevered in his obstinate determination not to confess. Jesus again told the Saint to desire the confessor to return. He did so; and on this third occasion told the sick man the revelation made to the Saint, and that he had returned so many times because Our Lord, who wished to show him mercy, had so ordered. On hearing this the dying man was touched, and began to weep: “But how,” he exclaimed, “can I be saved; I, who for sixty years have served the devil as his slave, and have my soul burdened with innumerable sins?” “My son,” answered the father, encouraging him, “doubt not; if you repent of them, on the part of God I promise you pardon.” Then, gaining confidence, he said to the confessor, “Father, I looked upon myself as lost, and already despaired of salvation; but now I feel a sorrow for my sins, which gives me confidence; and since God has not yet abandoned me, I will make my confession.” In fact he made his confession four times on that day, with the greatest marks of sorrow, and on the following morning received the holy communion. On the sixth day, contrite and resigned, he died. After his death, Jesus Christ again spoke to Saint Bridget, and told her that that sinner was saved; that he was then in purgatory, and that he owed his salvation to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin His Mother; for the deceased, although he had led so wicked a life, had nevertheless always preserved devotion to her dolours, and whenever he thought of them, pitied her.

PRAYER

O my afflicted Mother! Queen of martyrs and of sorrows, thou didst so bitterly weep over thy Son, who died for my salvation; but what will thy tears avail me if I am lost? By the merit, then, of thy sorrows, obtain me true contrition for my sins, and a real amendment of life, together with constant and tender compassion for the sufferings of Jesus and thy dolours. And if Jesus and thou, being so innocent, have suffered so much for love of me, obtain that at least I, who am deserving of hell, may suffer something for your love. “O Lady,” will I say with St. Bonaventure, “if I have offended thee, in justice wound my heart; if I have served thee, I now ask wounds for my reward. It is shameful to me to see my Lord Jesus wounded, and thee wounded with Him, and myself without a wound.” In fine, O my Mother, by the grief thou didst experience in seeing thy Son bow down His head and expire on the cross in the midst of so many torments, I beseech thee to obtain me a good death. Ah, cease not, O advocate of sinners, to assist my afflicted soul in the midst of the combats in which it will have to engage on its great passage from time to eternity. And as it is probable that I may then have lost my speech, and strength to invoke thy name and that of Jesus, who are all my hope, I do so now; I invoke thy Son and thee to succour me in that last moment; and I say, Jesus and Mary, to you I commend my soul. Amen.
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Of The Dolours of Mary, By St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Part 1.

Mary was the Queen of Martyrs, for her martyrdom was longer and greater than that of all the Martyrs. Who can ever have a heart so hard that it will not melt on hearing the most lamentable event which once occurred in the world? There was a noble and holy Mother Who had an only Son. This Son was the most amiable that can be imagined-innocent, virtuous, beautiful, Who loved His Mother most tenderly; so much so that He had never caused her the least displeasure, but had ever shown her all respect, obedience, and affection: hence this Mother had placed all her affections on earth in this Son. Hear, then, what happened. This Son, through envy, was falsely accused by His enemies; and though the judge knew, and himself confessed, that He was innocent, yet, that he might not offend His enemies, he condemned Him to the ignominious death that they had demanded. This poor Mother had to suffer the grief of seeing that amiable and beloved Son unjustly snatched from her in the flower of His age by a barbarous death; for, by dint of torments and drained of all His blood, He was made to die on an infamous gibbet in a public place of execution, and this before her own eyes.

Devout souls, what say you? Is not this event, and is not this unhappy Mother worthy of compassion. You already understand of whom I speak. This Son, so cruelly executed, was our loving Redeemer Jesus; and this Mother was the Blessed Virgin Mary; Who, for the love she bore us, was willing to see Him sacrificed to Divine Justice by the barbarity of men. This great torment, then, which Mary endured for us-a torment which was more than a thousand deaths deserves both our compassion and our gratitude. If we can make no other return for so much love, at least let us give a few moments this day to consider the greatness of the sufferings by which Mary became the Queen of martyrs; for the sufferings of her great martyrdom exceeded those of all the martyrs; being, in the first place, the longest in point of duration; and, in the second place, the greatest in point of intensity.

First point. As Jesus is called the King of sorrows and the King of martyrs, because He suffered during, His life more than all other martyrs; so also is Mary with reason called the Queen of martyrs, having merited this title by suffering the most cruel martyrdom possible after that of her Son. Hence, with reason, was she called by Richard of Saint Lawrence, “the Martyr of martyrs”; and of her can the words of Isaias with all truth be said, “He will crown thee with a crown of tribulation;” that is to say, that that suffering itself, which exceeded the suffering of all the other martyrs united, was the crown by which she was shown to be the Queen of martyrs. That Mary was a true martyr cannot be doubted, as Denis the Carthusian, Pelbart, Catharinus, and others prove; for it is an undoubted opinion that suffering sufficient to cause death is martyrdom, even though death does not ensue from it. Saint John the Evangelist is revered as a martyr, though he did not die in the cauldron of boiling oil, but he came out more vigorous than he went in. Saint Thomas says, “that to have the glory of martyrdom, it is sufficient to exercise obedience in its highest degree, that is to say, to be obedient unto death.” “Mary was a martyr,” says Saint Bernard, “not by the sword of the executioner, but by bitter sorrow of heart.” If her body was not wounded by the hand of the executioner, her blessed heart was transfixed by a sword of grief at the passion of her Son; grief which was sufficient to have caused her death, not once, but a thousand times. From this we shall see that Mary was not only a real martyr, but that her martyrdom surpassed all others; for it was longer than that of all others, and her whole life may be said to have been a prolonged death.

“The passion of Jesus,” as Saint Bernard says, “commenced with His birth.” So also did Mary, in all things like unto her Son, endure her martyrdom throughout her life. Amongst other significations of the name of Mary, as Blessed Albert the Great asserts, is that of “a bitter sea.” Hence to her is applicable the text of Jeremias : “great as the sea is thy destruction.” For as the sea is all bitter and salt, so also was the life of Mary always full of bitterness at the sight of the passion of the Redeemer, which was ever present to her mind. “There can be no doubt, that, enlightened by the Holy Ghost in a far higher degree than all the prophets, she, far better than they, understood the predictions recorded by them in the sacred Scriptures concerning the Messias.” This is precisely what the angel revealed to St. Bridget; and he also added, “that the Blessed Virgin, even before she became His Mother, knowing how much the

Incarnate Word was to suffer for the salvation of men, and compassionating this innocent Saviour, who was to be so cruelly put to death for crimes not His own, even then began her great martyrdom.”

Her grief was immeasurably increased when she became the Mother of this Saviour; so that at the sad sight of the many torments which were to be endured by her poor Son, she indeed suffered a long martyrdom, a martyrdom which lasted her whole life. This was signified with great exactitude to Saint Bridget in a vision which she had in Rome, in the church of Saint Mary Major, where the Blessed Virgin with Saint Simeon, and an angel bearing a very long sword, reddened with blood, appeared to her, denoting thereby the long, and bitter grief which transpierced the heart of Mary during her whole life. When the above named Rupert supposes Mary thus speaking: “Redeemed souls, and my beloved children, do not pity me only for the hour in which I beheld my dear Jesus expiring before my eyes; for the sword of sorrow predicted by Simeon pierced my soul during the whole of my life: when I was giving suck to my Son, when I was warming Him in my arms, I already foresaw the bitter death that awaited Him. Consider, then, what long and bitter sorrows I must have endured.”

Wherefore Mary might well say, in the words of David, “My life is wasted with grief, and my years in sighs.” “My sorrow is continually before me.” “My whole life was spent in sorrow and in tears; for my sorrow, which was compassion for my beloved Son, never departed from before my eyes, as I always foresaw the sufferings and death which He was one day to endure.” The Divine Mother herself revealed to Saint Bridget, that “even after the death and ascension of her Son, whether she ate, or worked, the remembrance of His passion was ever deeply impressed on her mind, and fresh in her tender heart.” Hence Tauler says, “that the most Blessed Virgin spent her whole life in continual sorrow;” for her heart was always occupied with sadness and with suffering.

Therefore time, which usually mitigates the sorrows of the afflicted, did not relieve Mary; nay, even it increased her sorrow; for, as Jesus, on the one hand, advanced in age, and always appeared more and more beautiful and amiable; so also, on the other hand, the time of His death always drew nearer, and grief always increased in the heart of Mary, at the thought of having to lose Him on earth. So that, in the words addressed by the angel to Saint Bridget: “As the rose grows up amongst thorns, so the Mother of God advanced in years in the midst of sufferings; and as the thorns increase with the growth of the rose, so also did the thorns of her sorrows increase in Mary, the chosen rose of the Lord, as she advanced in age; and so much the more deeply did they pierce her heart. Having now considered the tenth of this sorrow in point of duration, let us pass to the second point-its greatness in point of intensity.

Second point. Ah, Mary was not only Queen of martyrs because her martyrdom was longer than that of all others, but also because it was the greatest of all martyrdoms. Who, however, can measure its greatness? Jeremias seems unable to find any one with whom be can compare this Mother of Sorrows, when he considers her great sufferings at the death of her Son. “To what shall I compare thee or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem “ . . . for great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee?” Wherefore Cardinal Hugo, in a commentary on these words, says, “O Blessed Virgin, as the sea in bitterness exceeds all other bitterness, so does thy grief exceed all other grief. Hence Saint Anselm asserts, that “had not God by a special miracle preserved the life of Mary in each moment of her life, her grief was such that it would have caused her death. Saint Bernardine of Siena goes so far as to say, “that the grief of Mary was so great that, were it divided amongst all men, it would suffice to cause their immediate death.

But let us consider the reasons for which Mary’s martyrdom was greater than that of all martyrs. In the first place, we must remember that the martyrs endured their torments, which were the effect of fire and other material agencies, in their bodies; Mary suffered hers in her soul, as Saint Simeon foretold: “And my own soul a sword shall pierce.” As if the holy old man had said: “O most sacred Virgin, the bodies of other martyrs will be torn with iron, but thou wilt be transfixed, and martyred in thy soul by the Passion of thine own Son.” Now, as the soul is more noble than the body, so much greater were Mary’s sufferings than those of all the martyrs, as Jesus Christ Himself said to Saint Catherine of Siena: “Between the sufferings of the soul and those of the body there is no comparisons.” Whence the holy Abbot Arnold of Chartres says, “that whoever had been present on Mount Calvary, to witness the great sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, would there have beheld two great altars, the one in the body of Jesus, the other in the heart of Mary; for, on that mount, at the same time that the Son sacrificed His body by death, Mary sacrificed her soul by compassion.”

Moreover, says Saint Antoninus, “while other martyrs suffered by sacrificing their own lives, the Blessed Virgin suffered by sacrificing her Son’s life, a life that she loved far more than her own; so that she not only suffered in her soul all that her Son endured in His body, but moreover the sight of her Son’s torments brought more grief to her heart than if she had endured them all in her own person. No one can doubt that Mary suffered in her heart all the outrages which she saw inflicted on her beloved Jesus. Any one can understand that the sufferings of children are also those of their mothers who witness them. Saint Augustine, considering the anguish endured by the mother of the Maccabees in witnessing the tortures of her sons, says, “she, seeing their sufferings, suffered in each one; because she loved them all, she endured in her soul what they endured in their flesh.” Thus also did Mary suffer all those torments, scourges, thorns, nails, and the cross, which tortured the innocent flesh of Jesus, all entered at the same time into the heart of this Blessed Virgin, to complete her martyrdom. “He suffered in “the flesh, and she in her heart,” writes that Blessed Amadeus. “So much so,” says Saint Lawrence Justinian, “that the heart of Mary became, as it were, a mirror of the Passion of the Son, in which might be seen, faithfully reflected, the spitting, the blows and wounds, and all that Jesus suffered.” Saint Bonaventure also remarks that “those wounds-which were scattered over the body of our Lord were all united in the single heart of Mary.”

The Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. 5.—The Crucifixion

Duccio - The Crucifixion

The Via Crucis, that Way of the Cross, which was a way of unutterable sorrows, has been made. Blood is tracked along the streets of Jerusalem from Pilate's hall to the city gate through which that procession passed ; is tracked along the winding, rocky way which it took from the gate. Simon of Cyrene has borne—first unwillingly, then with a mysterious joy, which flooded his soul and was succeeded by the gift of faith—that same cross on which Jesus is to redeem the world. Veronica, too, has won, by her ardent devotion, her uncalculating charity, that image on her mantle, which is still shown on Good-Friday from a balcony in Saint Peter's Basilica. Both have been immortalized by their compassionate service to the Man of Sorrows.

And now we approach, actually stand on the summit of that hill of Calvary, bearing the ghastly name of Golgotha, or place of skulls; and here, in full sight of the Holy City, the City of David, they crucify Him of whom the prophets spake and the psalmist sang; for whom the world had waited and longed for four thousand years;—crucify Him between two thieves, adding ignominy to ignominy; thus fulfilling the prediction of Isaiah : " He was reputed with the wicked ; and He hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors."

But in return for these ignominies, these tortures, there comes from the inexhaustible patience of the Divine Heart this one ejaculation: " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

It was high noon, and the March sun shone unclouded from the sky, when that space which was seen between two crosses on the summit of Calvary when Mary met her Son in the way, was filled, bearing on its beam the Body of the God-Man, on its arms the pierced hands of the Victim of sin ; but no sooner was He thus lifted up than a darkness more appalling than any blackness preceding a tornado covered not only Mount Calvary, Judea, but the entire earth. For three hours it hung like a pall over the world, so that Dionysius the Areopagite exclaimed in his fair city of Athens : " Either the God of nature is suffering or the framework of the world is breaking up ! " And for three hours that Body of the Incarnate Word hung while amid the surrounding darkness, was seen distinctly from the Holy City; and for three hours Mary, maiden and mother, stood by the cross of her crucified Son. She did not lean against that cross, she did not lean upon the faithful women who had accompanied her; simply stood under His pierced right hand.

The first hour had been passed when the eyes, clotted and bloodshot, sought those of Mary lifted to His own; and the lips parted with these words : " Mother, behold thy son'" Then the eyes turned to the Beloved Disciple standing under His left hand as He said : " Behold thy Mother ! " " O what change to thee!" exclaims Saint Bernard ;

"Thou art given John for Jesus; the servant for his Lord; the disciple for his Master; the son of Zebedee for the Son of God ; a mere man for very God ! " A dolor in itself.

Again that voice is heard in its low minor key : " I thirst ! " Jesus thirsts ! He who made the world ; who set the springs of water in the deep rocks, protects them by shadows in the dense forests where the shy stag can quench its thirst at noonday; sends down the dew at evening to revive the fainting flowers over the whole earth,—calls for one drop of all that He has created and blessed both for man and beasts and fowl of the air; and Mary cannot give Him the drop for which He sighs so piteously. Another dolor within our dolor.

Again a voice, but not the voice of Jesus, breaks on Mary's ear—the voice of the Good Thief, the only alleviation which was vouchsafed during three hours of agony on the cross: " Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." And the tender voice she loves so well is heard: " This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.

But now it is a cry—a cry that pierces the heart of Mary, close beside Him in the awful darkness : "My God, My God ! why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" Not only pierces her heart, but opens before her undreamed-of abysses of anguish in the soul of Jesus! Another dolor within our dolor.

To this agonizing appeal succeeds a cry which is an utter offering up of his dying humanity—an offering, too, in behalf of humanity all over the world dying at that moment, of all who are to die to the last moment of time, to be echoed by the dying through all ages—"Father into Thy hands I commend my spirit."

Another cry, the last cry, so strong that it startles the centurion, who exclaims : "Verily this Man was the Son of God ! " For that cry, Consummatum est! —" It is consummated ! "—tells Mary that the soul of her Jesus has left the earth which He had blessed with His incarnate presence for thirty-three years ; has left the world He came to redeem; and who can tell the absolute vacuum left in the heart of Mary ! She sees the beautiful head—gory indeed, ghastly indeed, but, oh, how beautiful still!—fall on His breast; and she knows that her Jesus is dead. While Jesus lives Mary stands. Can we wonder if she sinks on the arms of her friends as gently as the head of Jesus had sunk on His breast ?

At this moment the veil of the Temple, the veil that hid the Holy of Holies, is rent in twain from the top to the bottom; the earth quakes beneath her; the very rocks are rent; the graves of Jerusalem are opened ; but none of these horrors can stir the heart of Mary, for they stir not the Heart of Jesus.

While no hand is yet known to have delineated this divine tragedy on any wall of an early catacomb, or upon any wall of chapel or basilica before that which in this last half of our present century has been laid open to view in the subterranean Church of Saint Clement, Rome, the perfection of this Crucifixion, as a type, is proof that it was treated in the liturgical books from a very early period ; and this Crucifixion itself must have been executed long before the year 800, when the Church of Saint Clement was so severely injured by an earthquake as to necessitate the building of another basilica on its still sound walls; and from that time until 1858 was hermetically sealed to the eyes of men. It is painted on a wide pilaster forming a right angle with the end of the nave. Our Lord is represented attached to the cross by four nails, the arms horizontal, the head above the cross-beam; so that He seems literally to hang there of His own free will.

On the right side stands His Blessed yet sorrowing Mother, both hands raised to Him as if in sympathy; on the left hand Saint John, his right hand raised also in the same spirit, but in his left hand is the scroll of an Evangelist. Simple as the conception is, it embodies the Gospel story, and in no Crucifixion have the relative places of the Blessed Virgin and of Saint John been deviated from. Although the old Saint Clement was in darkness, the tradition which it followed in this instance was the inheritance of Christendom ; and from that time to this has been adhered to; and from that time no subject has been so near to the heart of Christendom, or so universally chosen by her artists.

The Crucifixion by Giotto di Bondone

From the first, the Blessed Virgin and Saint John were introduced, we think, invariably; and later, in the Church of Saint Francis at Assisi, in the series begun by Cimabue and finished by Giotto, the Crucifixion is given with all its attendant circumstances. In this picture Longinus has already pierced the side of Our Lord; and, as if this act had opened the eyes of his mind, he has left his steed and is kneeling on the ground with his hands lifted in adoration. Saint Mary Magdalene is embracing the cross on one side, Saint Francis on the other; and in the centre of a group of pitying women is Our Lady, who has sunk to the ground in a swoon. Troops of horsemen are leaving Mount Calvary, and the space on the right is occupied by the followers of the crucified One.

Duccio's Crucifixion dwells upon the sorrow of Our Lady in a still more marked manner. The Lord of Glory is dead; the spear has pierced His side; and directly in the foreground is the beautiful group of Our Lady tenderly supported by the holy women who are her companions, while Saint John takes her hands on his own. She does not actually swoon, but the revulsion of mortal weakness has come after those three hours of standing immovably ;—one of Duccio's loveliest groups, and in no way contradicting the account by Saint John ; since it represents, we may say, the scene a few moments after the death of Our Lord, and is full of the tenderest human sentiment.

Spanish chapel of Santa Maria Novell

Simoni Memmi, in the series painted by him in the Spanish chapel of Santa Maria Novella, gives a magnificent epitome of the event in the arch above and around the altar ; so arranged as to give the procession to Mount Calvary, the scene immediately following the Crucifixion—soldiers, guardsmen, mounted officers, and those who derided Our Lord, saying : " Vah ! vah ! " All are there, with the crucified thieves, the angels in the air lamenting. But on the right side are the holy women around Our Lady; and Saint Mary Magdalene is entreating a soldier, who
turns toward her, to allow them to go near to the cross. In this, Our Lady stands, with clasped hands but perfectly quiet, looking at her suffering Son, while the Magdalene entreats for her.

On the bronze panels of the pulpit in Saint Lorenzo, in Florence, Donatello has given the whole story of the Passion and death of Our Lord with a vividness which seems to throw all other representations into shadow, as we follow out the awful story. In this Crucifixion, how cuirassed men, soldiers with their spears, horsemen who draw their helmets over their eyes to shut out the horrors of a scene more awful than the eye of man had ever before witnessed, throng upon one another! How the three crosses and the three victims, how angels and demons, how the spears and the banners fill the air ! And we actually see the blackness, the more than midnight darkness of that eclipse; see and feel it as actual. But in the midst of all this how the head of Jesus bends toward the Mother, standing, with bowed head and clasped hands, beside Him! Our dolor is there in all its intensity: fills the eye, fills the heart, as it fills the very centre of our foreground.

With the Crucifixion by Fra Angelico, in Saint Mark's at Florence, we enter upon another phase of its representation. We have the reality of the three crosses, the Lord of Glory crucified between two thieves ; but instead of helmeted warriors, guardsmen, executioners, we have the saints of all times, especially of those religious orders that favor meditation j for it is the reality, as it comes before the faithful by way of meditation, that Fra Angelico delineates in his Crucifixion; drawing forth that bundle of myrrh of which Saint Bernard speaks as lying always on his breast " to make up for the sheaf of merits " which he knew he had not. "To think of these troubles and griefs," he says, u is real wisdom. In them I have determined to find perfect righteousness, full knowledge, plentiful salvation, and abundant merit. It is the thought of these troubles and woes of His that cheereth me when I am afflicted, and maketh me grave when it is well with me. Do ye also gather you a bundle of this beloved myrrh."

Here we have the motive of Angelico's picture. This is why we see Saint John Baptist, still as the precursor, beside the cross; why we see Saint Lawrence with his gridiron, Saint Benedict with his book of rules, Saint Dominic and Saint Francis with their disciples. But meditation is sure to keep in mind Our Blessed Lady and her Dolors ; and the " Stabat Mater " echoes in every line of this picture; sets to its plaintive measure every thought of the mind, every compassionate impulse of the heart of him who conceived and executed it. She is seen here sustained by Mary of Salome, and by Saint John as her son; while before her, on her knees, the Magdalene embraces her as the Mother of Sorrows ; in the abandonment of her own grief, compassionating Our Lady.

Luca della Robbia, a contemporary of Fra Angelico, whose tender piety has interpreted in so many of his works the choicest sentiments of the Christian soul, has companioned the Angelical in the ways of meditation. In his Crucifixion, how close to that cross stands the Mother, looking down in her own anguish upon St. Francis, as if to console him for the wounds borne for the love of Jesus ; while " the most beautiful Saint John in the world " stands and adores the Master; adoring angels filling the air, bringing heaven and its transports to the King of Glory in His humiliation !

It was in this same spirit of meditation that Perugino composed his " Great Crucifixion," as it is called, for the chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi in Florence. Instead of a crowded scene, the very air vibrating with the ghastly horrors of a midnight at noonday, three wide arches stand between us and a vast landscape—hills, valleys, inland seas, towns. Trees, just foliating as if in spring, crown the near hills, and fleecy clouds float through the broad spaces of sky. Within the central arch stands the cross which bears the crucified One, the beautiful head, with its circlet of delicate thorns and the cruciform nimbus, slightly bowed as if in death; the arms are nearly horizontal; the whole figure self-sustained and of the perfection of beauty in its proportions, breathing repose, as it were, in every line. At the foot of the cross kneels Saint Mary Magdalene,—one of Perugino's Magdalenes, unlike all others in the tenderness of its absorbed devotion; the eyes raised to her Lord, but the lids heavy with weeping ; the hands gently joined at the finger tips. It is Mary of Bethany, who had chosen the better part.

Within the left-hand arch stands Saint John, his eyes fixed upon the face of his Divine Master; the arms and hands dropped at his side, as if saying : "Was ever sorrow like this sorrow ? Was ever love like this love ?" Nothing more compassionate, nothing more gentle, nothing more affectionate, was ever imagined as a Saint John. Very near to him kneels Saint Benedict," his face, with its deep look of abiding compassion for his Lord, raised to Him hanging on His cross.

Within the right-hand arch stands Our Lady, looking out upon the world which was given to her by Our Lord when He gave her Saint John as her son. A desolation not to be put into words pervades the whole figure. The hands, held downward, do not clasp, but interweave in the distress of this desolation ; there is a weariness in the eyes like those of patient watchers by beds of sickness and of death; and the sad sweetness of the mouth is that of one who suffers without complaint. Near her kneels Saint [Bernard, his tender words of sympathy giving him this place beside Our Lady.

But Steinle, of our own day, brings us back to the actual keynote of our theme. We see the domes of Jerusalem; before the cross stands Mary; Jesus is not yet there, only the sword promised by Simeon. The head is bowed; the hands and intertwining fingers raised to her agonized breast, not to avert but to accept this dolor of the Crucifixion.

From The Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary By By Eliza Allen Starr 

The Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. 4.— The Meeting between Our Lord and His Mother on the Way to Calvary

Raphael - Christ Carrying the Cross

How like a dream, in an atmosphere of inconceivable loveliness, must not have seemed to Mary the hidden life of Jesus at Nazareth! Of all the Nazarene youths, none was more retiring than " the Son," as He was accounted, " of Joseph the carpenter." Not one was more assiduous at his occupation; and in the early days of the Church the faithful were reminded of the ploughs and yokes made from the hard wood by this Youth who had confounded, by the wisdom of His questions, the perfection of His replies, the wise men of His nation; and until the age of thirty this marvel continued.

Saint Joseph died during these years, breathing out his soul most peacefully on the The Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin bosom of Jesus, with Mary at his side; and this unity of the Holy Family once riven, we feel that it is a signal for the breaking up of the household itself. The ears of Jesus and of Mary were quick to hear the cry of the Baptist. It was the call to the public life of Jesus Himself, and was obeyed as implicitly as Saint Joseph had obeyed the voice and gesture of the angel charging him to flee into Egypt.

That Mary followed we can have no doubt; and thus the home at Nazareth was a deserted one. We can see her blue mantle flitting among the crowds that flocked to Saint John on the banks of the Jordan. She saw that Dove, symbolizing the same Holy Spirit which had flooded, her soul with an awful joy at the moment of the Incarnation, descend upon the head of Jesus; she heard the voice, and she knew that the beginning of the end had come. The vocations of the several Apostles were so many revelations to her; and when they appeared with their Master at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, the miracle which she evoked from her Son disclosed Him in all His beauty to the admiring guests. It was the opening of a celestial flower under the smile of Mary's virginal maternity.

Thenceforth the story of the " three years' ministry" absorbs the Evangelists. She appears once with His brethren while He is preaching and working wonders, and the word is sent to Him that His Mother and His brethren are without, desiring to speak with Him. But while she hears that voice declare, " Whosoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, My sister, and mother," she knows that her presence has been a consolation to Him.

But the plots of Pharisees and Sadducees are deepening: closer and closer around Him are their nets woven ; and closer and closer around Mary draws that circle of holy women who are to^be her companions to the last: Mary, the wife of Cleophas, the brother of Saint ;,Joseph, the mother of James and Jude, and a near relative of the Blessed Virgin; and Saint Mary Magdalene, the sister of Lazarus of Bethany.

During these last days she is always represented with these devoted women; above all, with Saint Mary Magdalene. They are with her when the tidings come to her, by the mouth of the Beloved Disciple, of all that passed in the Garden of Olives, the judgment hall of Pilate ; but now she sees with her own eyes that the murderous sentence is to be carried out. She sees the procession of centurion and guards and soldiers taking its way from Pilate's house; in the midst she sees Jesus bearing His cross without one helping hand ; sees Him sinking to the ground under its weight. With a cry of anguish, she darts forward, makes her way through the ranks of armed soldiers, kneels beside her Divine Son, stretches toward Him the hands that wrapped Him in His swaddling clothes, but which are not allowed to touch Him now in His humiliation. All the dolors of her thirty-three years—since she presented Him in the Temple, fled with Him to Egypt, sought Him through the streets of Jerusalem; all the grief at seeing Him rejected by His nation, persecuted, calumniated, at last condemned, and actually led to a most shameful and bitter death,—seize her heart like a death spasm. The eyes of the Son meet the eyes of the Mother; the same spasm that wrenches the heart of the Mother wrenches that of her Son ; and her broken, tearless sobs are the only sounds that mark their meeting.

In that " Way of the Cross" in which the late beloved Father Sorin, of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, has given us his meditations while making the actual Via Crucis in Jerusalem, we read : " The pilgrim is told where Jesus and Mary met on the road to Calvary; the sacred spot which even now, from tradition, is called c The Spasm,' and which has been kept ever since in the greatest veneration. Here, in overwhelming affliction, met the two tenderest hearts that ever lived. O Mother of Sorrows, to whom shall I liken thee ? For thy pain is boundless as the sea."

Cimabue, at Assisi, gives the mounted soldiery, awful in helmets and armor and lifted spears, pressing through the gate of the Holy City ; and just outside we see the procession on foot, led by two mounted men-at-arms. In their rear are the two thieves who are to be crucified, urged on by blows \ followed by Our Lord carrying His cross with a meekness that might disarm the malice of His executioners, if not of those who had sought His condemnation. Behind Our Lord are two other armed men, who are addressing a group of sorrowful women that have braved soldiers and horsemen to follow the Crucified; and here we recognize the Blessed Virgin, Saint Mary Magdalene, Mary of Cleophas, the Beloved Disciple Saint John; while scowling horsemen, as we have said, press upon them at the gate.

But most threatening of all is one of the horsemen leading the procession, who looks angrily back and points his naked sword at the sorrowing women, as if ordering them from the ranks. The Magdalene meets his eye and the glint of his sword, and seems to remonstrate; but the Mother, like her Son, bows meekly to the command, as do her companions ; Saint John holding his cheek in his hand, in his anguish.

In the Franciscan church of Santa Croce, Florence, Taddeo Gaddi gives this scene with a beauty of conception worthy of the artist who adorned the Spanish chapel in Santa Maria Novella. The towers of the Holy City are seen above the walls, from which pour crowds following in the wake of the cross, which rests on the shoulders of Our Lord, surrounded by armed men in their helmets and banners, with spears raised high. Close in the rear we see a group of women, and a soldier is raising his mace at them threateningly. But one darts forward, throws out both her hands to the full-length of her arms toward the holy Sufferer, with an expression on her face of such anguish, such agony, as only a gesture like this could express; while the meek Lord turns upon her that look of divine compassion which only a mother could claim, and that a virgin-mother. The dolor is here in all its fullness, in all its supernatural intensity. No one who ever looked upon that picture could fail to compassionate Mary, even when the meek Son of God is seen bending under His cross as a malefactor; for this it is which pierces the soul of Mary, rending her heartstrings.

Once more our Fra Angelico takes up the story of Mary's Dolors. Can we not picture to ourselves the Dominican Brother who had never dreamed of taking Holy Orders; who took his place in the stalls instead of before the altar; who thought not of edifying his brethren, only of saving his own soul, and by the pious practice of his art to help them to save theirs; whose modesty shrank from preferment, and who loved, next to his prayer-stall in the choir, the solitude of his cell and the silence of his special calling,—can we not imagine this humble lay-brother shedding silent tears, as meditating, with his brethren, on the Passion of his beloved Master, the thought of Our Lady and of her part in that Passion comes over him like a wave of compassion, until he realizes that the sorrows of Jesus were Mary's sorrows as well, and the anguish that pierced the Heart of Jesus pierced hers also ?

To pass from the choir to his own cell, or to the cell of the Brother whose book of meditation he was painting on its walls, was only to pass from one place of prayer, from one place of meditation, to another; and when he addressed himself to delineating the scenes in the story of Jesus of Nazareth, he had only to bow his head with an invocation to the Holy Spirit, to bring everything before his mind with the vividness of the actual event. No wonder that these conceptions, so simple in their outlines, often so barren as to details, lift the imagination, rouse the sympathies, and open, we know not how, vistas of thought which attract us, lead us out of the beaten paths of worldly conceptions, worldly criticisms, to yield ourselves to the gentle spell of genius lighting its flame at the lamp of the sanctuary.

Again we see the lofty towers that strengthen the walls of Jerusalem; a few cypresses lift their heads beside them; a few olive-trees are scattered over the hillside. The gate is open, and horsemen in helmets and armor come forward on their war steeds, but without haste or animosity. To the right we see a road winding among rocks, and an armed procession following its sharp curves; while between these is a group which tells us the bitter story. Under the very heads of the horsemen issuing from the gate is a group of women, gentle, with clasped hands, as if adoring while they walk. The first full figure that comes to view is that of the Magdalene. A fillet binds modestly the hair which once wiped the anointed feet of her Master. Her hands are clasped in pain; her eyes look steadfastly before her, as if they could not turn from the object of her adoration; and directly before her, a tall, gentle figure, the hands clasped even tighter than those of the Magdalene, the star shining on her mantled shoulder, is Mary. She bends forward with a longing gesture, as if she must touch the object of her soul's worshipful love; and the eyes meet His whose glance has been the sunshine of her life.

But as she leans forward a soldier puts out his hand toward her as if to say : "You must not advance one step!" That " must not" was all that need be said to break Mary's heart. The anguish on that tender, thin face—the unresisting anguish— is like His only who goes before her, His unshod feet cut by the stones in the way, the slender hands balancing the heavy cross on His own shoulder; but the head, with its cruciform nimbus, turning toward His Mother with an agony of compassion. No other compassion we have described has been like this compassion; no other has probed like this the depth of Mary's dolor.

We pass from the quiet cloister of Saint Mark's, from the silent presence of its lay-brother, called "the blessed one" even by his brethren of the monastery, to a studio in Rome—the studio of one beloved as few in this world have been beloved; and yet bereaved of father, mother—every relative but an uncle, by whose loving, appreciative care his genius has been sheltered from the age of eleven years. The world, its nobles, its princes, its emperors, its pontiffs, have lavished upon him their highest honors, their unbounded admiration. The wonder is that no flattery has altered his gentle modesty, no worldly grandeur taken from him the vision of heavenly things. Some mysterious virtue surrounds him, men say; but angels know that he has kept his youthful piety.

In the midst of all the commissions of imperial and pontifical favor comes one from the monks of Monte Oliveto, Palermo, Sicily; the scene to be that in which Our Lord is met on His way to Calvary by His most sorrowful Mother. In a moment of tender exaltation, of pious emotion, the artist of the Vatican, the almost worshipped Raphael of Urbino, of entire Italy, and of civilized Europe, conceives the picture which is still called to-day Lo Spasimo, or "The Spasm." In this there is all the charm of a receding landscape, of a vernal sky, of trees putting forth their tender leafage; and the winding road, over which are scattered many and differing groups, leads to a hill on which stand two crosses, the ominous space between them to be filled by Him who had come to redeem the world from the consequences of its sin by His own most bitter death.

The broad standard of Rome, with its S. P. Q. R., carried by an officer superbly mounted, helmeted and in full armor, floats between us and that hill of skulls. The centurion, a model of manly beauty, with uncovered head, but otherwise in complete armor, mounted on his charger, surrounded by his staff with their long lances, issues from a strong gateway; but standard-bearer and centurion are alike occupied with the scene that fills the foreground. The victim of His nation's hatred, of Pilate's timorous selfishness, has fallen under the heavy cross laid on His shoulders ; and the centurion, with a look of deep anxiety on his face, motions to an attendant to relieve the condemned One of its cruel weight, which taxes even the trained muscles of the executioner to raise. There is no rudeness, no urging; all are simply performing the conditions of the sentence—an ordinary sentence, and yet it would seem upon some extraordinary man.

Under the shadow, the shelter for the moment, of His own cross, on which He still keeps one hand, the other grasping a stone of the road as He falls on His knees, is the King of Glory, His cruciform nimbus mingling with His crown of thorns ; His divine beauty unobscured by the blood that mats the hair falling on His shoulders, crimsoning his robe ; and, looking upward, half prostrate as He is, to meet the eyes—of whom ?

Directly in front of the centurion and his war charger, on her knees, is Mary, as if when her Son fell she had fallen also; the yearning, agonized face looking into His ; and the arms—how can we put into words what those long arms and hands, extended to their utmost, tell of that Mother's agony! Mary Magdalene, Mary of Cleophas, and still another, with Saint John, are sustaining her; but she heeds them not. For herself, even, she has no thought. One only fills her soul, seizes her heart like a spasm—which is, to see the Incarnate One trodden upon as " a worm and no man " by the creatures He has created, whom He sustains in life while hastening to His own death. Seas may be convulsed, rocks may be rent ; but, to Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, none of this compares with the spasm that clutches at His Mother's heart as He turns on her His divinely compassionate eyes.

Yet devotion, genius, the skill which the world admires, craves, have set this dolor before the eyes of one century after another, for one purpose only, whether by the hand of Cimabue, Taddeo Gaddi, Fra Angelico or Raphael—to win us to its contemplation.

From The Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary By By Eliza Allen Starr 

The Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. 3.— The Three Days Loss.

The pain of pains, whether—as Dante puts such comparisons—a man measures himself by himself or measures himself with God,—still the pain of pains is the mystery of our Third Dolor; for it is the pain of loss. It was the dread of loss which had made the anguish of the Flight; but to this had succeeded the peaceful sojourn in Egypt, even if it were an exile. When the angel appeared again to Saint Joseph, it was to assure him that they were " dead who sought the life of the Child," and the Holy Family took its way, according to his command, to the land of Israel and to Nazareth, its peaceful hills and valleys not more peaceful than the gentle tenor of these three holy lives.

The bliss of these years has inspired many a Christian artist to give the lovely intercourse not only between Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but with Elizabeth and the young John the Baptist and Zachary,—all of whom had been included in the events connected with the Incarnation, as recorded by Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, so that a peculiar oneness of thought must have made their intercourse second only to that of the blessed in heaven.

Beautiful and most peaceful these years certainly were; but more to Mary than any joy of occupation, even with her Son, must have been that of watching from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, the unfolding of the Godhead in the manhood, in a way strictly according to the laws of increasing intelligence with children, yet so marvellous as to fill the soul of the Mother with continual and delightful astonishment. It was the blossoming time of that Mother's life. Thoughts of danger must have been lulled; a sense of security must have relieved the tension of soul and of body; and when the time came for her grave and beautiful Boy to accompany Joseph and herself to Jerusalem, she must have looked forward to that journey and to His first appearance in the Temple since His presentation.

That presentation ! O Virgin-Mother! did no shadow pass over thy soul, like those which chase each other over verdant meadows and fields of waving grain, from we know not what, unless from the dreamy clouds of the welkin? Mary could not forget Simeon's prophecy, and, as she neared the Temple with this Son of twelve years at her side, the natural exultation of the Mother's heart must have died out, if only for the instant; and Simeon's aged face and trembling voice must have come, for that instant, between her and the radiant Being whose hand was held so dutifully, so lovingly, within her own.

Seven days—filled, as none of Mary's days had ever before been filled, by contact with noisy crowds,—completed the sojourn of the Holy Family in Jerusalem, as it did of all the devout Jews, who had come from every part of the civilized world, to keep the Feast of the Passover. The streets were thronged, so were the gates. For one instant her Boy was missing—carried from His place, as she supposed, by the crushing multitudes. She would see Him when they had passed the gates, she said to herself, and Joseph assured her of this also. But the gates were passed; every living being must have been pressed through by the weight of multitudes thronging from the rear; and it was not possible to turn back, or go to the right or to the left: they must simply drift with the strong tide.

Their caravan, which was from Galilee, was made up of several thousand persons; so that when they were again on the highway it was still impossible to seek for any missing member of a family; and as it was then noontide, they must be content to wait until the caravan paused for the night, as it did, we are told by an ancient tradition, at Beeroth.

But although a diligent, and very soon an agonized, search was made for the Boy Jesus; and while, as on all such' occasions, every one was eager to find the missing Child, no trace could be found of Him. No one could remember having seen Him after the first ranging of the family in the band to which they naturally belonged. "We have sought Him," they said sorrowfully to each other, "among all our kinsfolk and acquaintances; He must have remained in Jerusalem."

The earliest dawn saw them in the Holy City, threading the same streets through which they had walked with Him, hand in hand, on their departure; to the very house where they had found hospitality during their sojourn of seven days; but the Boy Jesus was not there—had not been there since leaving. One street after another, one locality after another, drew them, they hardly knew why, until Mary, no longer able to contain herself, asked every one they met if he had not seen a beautiful Boy of twelve years,—more beautiful, she would add, than any of the children of men. They even made their way to the Temple, now almost deserted; but when they found Him not, the weary search from house to house began. There were few in Jerusalem who had not seen the anxious but still gentle face of the young Mother from Nazareth who had lost her Son; nor did the accents of her voice cease to echo in their hearts even when they had passed her by, and a sympathetic tone came into the harshest voice with the "Nay, good woman, we have not seen thy Son."

In vain did Joseph try to persuade her to take some rest, some nourishment; for what could rest her or what could nourish her when not only the light of her eyes, the sun of her soul, had been taken from her, but the Hope of Israel, who had been confided to her—the very Son of the Most High, who had taken flesh of her; He who had created her, had come to redeem her, with all the souls that had lived, still lived, were ever to live on this earth ? The infinite magnitude of the possession, the infinite magnitude of the loss, surpassing mortal understanding! —even Saint Joseph, with the infused perception of spiritual things, which came from his intimacy with Jesus, could not fathom the agony of her search for this infinite trust committed to her care, of all the daughters of Eve. Jerusalem had been searched with eyes keener than lamps. Once more would she go to the Temple. Could one so gentle, so considerate, resist the drawings of her heart any more than the steel can resist the loadstone ? She was confident that He had hidden Himself from her—for what reason she did not seek an answer. It was enough for her that He had withdrawn Himself from her; that she was to seek Him until she found Him. Never had the fifteen steps to the Temple seemed to her so long, and a dizzy faintness came over her at the last; for, if He were not there, whither should she go ? The first court was passed; but "on Sabbath days the Jewish doctors were accustomed to meet in one of the lofty halls of the Temple, there to solve any difficulties occurring in the interpretation of the Law. In the time of the Pasch, particularly, when Jews from all over the world flocked to Jerusalem, there were throngs about these far-famed masters, eager to be instructed by them."[See " La Vie de N. S. Jesus Christ." By Abbe Fouard. Translated into English by George F. X. Griffith]. To this hall pressed forward Mary, followed by her faithful spouse; and as she entered the door, what sight met her eyes ? Truly her grief, her solicitude, must be measured by her joy; for there, in the midst of the great doctors of her nation, all looking eagerly into His face, all listening with rapt attention to the words which came from His lips, was her beloved Son!

Never had that face been so radiant even to the eyes of Mary; never had that voice so transported her soul. A majesty, hitherto restrained, uplifted His whole being, yet took nothing from its divine modesty. Asking questions, listening to their solving,-—-the very question was an instruction, and floods of light poured over the minds of the grave doctors to whom the questions were propounded. It was another stride onward in the manifestation of the divinity. Mary understood it all now, but her heart was still sore; the ache had not yet died out; and, advancing with Saint Joseph at her side, she stood before the teacher in all the plentitude of her Divine Motherhood, breathing rather than speaking: " Son, why hast Thou done so to us ? behold Thy father and I have sought Thee, sorrowing."

Dante, in the fifteenth canto of his " Purgatory," brings this scene before us as one of those sculptured on the marble walls illustrating sweet Patience :

.... I saw we had attained Another terrace ; whence I speech restrained. There by an ecstatic vision rapt away - I suddenly seemed; and, 'neath a temple's dome, A crowd I saw of many people come; And, at the door, a dame, whose sweet, mild way Was that a mother hath, and soft and low. "Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? For lo, Sorrowing Thy father and myself," she said, "Were seeking for Thee." More she did not say."[See Wilstach's Translation.]

Dante and Giotto were school-fellows, and much that Dante put in verse our Giotto painted. This scene he placed on the walls of the famous Arena Chapel at Padua. Jesus strictly as the Boy Jesus, is seated on a high bench. We see His profile only ; one hand holds His mantle, the other arm is outstretched to the doctor nearest to Him, toward whom He leans, with a gentle persuasiveness in which there is majesty as well. Advancing toward the group of doctors, we see Mary, her face still wearing the traces of her sorrowful search, both hands extended toward her Child; the star on the shoulder of her mantle, and beside her is Joseph. Not one strained gesture, not one line of enforced majesty; but the sorrow is there as well as the joy, and the Boy Jesus is instructing even while He asks questions.

Spagnoletto

A charming picture by Spagnoletto, in the Vienna gallery, preserves the youthful gentleness of the Divine Boy. The beautiful, eager face, the boyish curls, the hand grasping the arm of the chair, from which He has half risen, and this arm a bit of choice carving—an eagle's bent head,—the right arm and index finger raised heavenward as He inclines toward a turbaned doctor earnestly scanning the pages of a book resting on the table, around whom are five magnificent
heads of doctors, earnest also, and seventeen press forward at the rear. But at His side we can see the head of the Virgin-Mother, and also of Saint Joseph, both of a noble type, and Joseph's staff just visible, the whole full of the true spirit of the scene.

Among the Dusseldorf series of religious prints is a very beautiful one after Ittenbach. The youthful Christ, gentle, modest, is seated on a bench of honor, His feet on a stool on the raised dais; in His hand a roll, and the right hand and index finger slightly raised as if by the energy of speaking. Eight doctors are standing or seated on low benches around Him, but one is deeply in earnest, and is drawing out answers to his questions from the Child, who is listened to with admiration. Upon this scene appears the Mother Mary, ecstatic with joy, yet bearing traces of her grief, as well as Saint Joseph, and both are so demonstrative as to cause one of the grave doctors to turn his eyes upon them. A tender, reverential feeling runs through the picture, and the spontaneous action of the Blessed Virgin and of Saint Joseph is precisely what we ourselves would imagine after this three days' loss.

Overbeck has given two renderings of this scene; but the one in his "Forty Illustrations of the Four Gospels" seems to us to have been inspired by a deeper, sweeter feeling than the other; although, evidently, the same conception runs through both. In this the Divine Child is even younger than in the first, still seated on the heavy tomes; but He has turned from one eager, impatient questioner to listen to another, and the attitude is in itself eloquent, while it is a marvel of technique in drawing. Slight as the position allows our view of the face to be, it is that of a listener and speaker as well; but the irrepressible rabbi who touches His hand to compel His attention, does not disturb the serenity of the exposition being made by the raised fingers and thumb. Every ear, every eye, among the fourteen doctors is riveted— spellbound, as it were—on the wonderful Child.

Upon this scene comes, in the far background, the Virgin-Mother, with a dejected, heart-broken mien. She has not yet discovered her Son, has not yet heard His voice; and Joseph is encouraging her to proceed with him, for she follows him. It is the only picture I know which gives the actual search and at the same time the young Christ in the midst of the doctors. The heads of the doctors are wonderfully individualized, every shade of attention being given; while the figures of the Virgin-Mother and Saint Joseph express the weary, heart-breaking search, and the youthful Christ is a dream of beauty and of supernatural intelligence.

But the Beuron, which we may also designate as the modern Benedictine School of Ideal Art, gives another rendering of this scene too precious to be omitted. The youthful beauty of the Child Jesus is entrancing. No conception yet embodied in any picture I know rivals it. The oval face has the length of a boy's of twelve; the simplicity of the pose is altogether as youthful. He is seated on the high base of a double column, connected by classic garlands to two other columns. It would seem to be a seat for an instructor; but His feet do not touch the footstool, intended for some adult, to which lead four steps, all richly draped. To one side are five doctors, who have been occupied with the rolls beside them, while in in the hand of the Boy Jesus, resting on His knee, is an open volume.

But neither Boy nor doctor is now occupied with grave questions; for directly on the opposite side appear the Virgin-Mother and Saint Joseph. She comes close to the steps, raises her rapturous, yet still questioning, hands, looks into the eyes of her beloved One, and the sweet words, " Son, why hast Thou done so to us ? " come from her lips. The Boy's eyes are bent upon, meet the eyes of His Mother, and the hand is raised slightly, in gentle expostulation, saying: "Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?" Saint Joseph stands at her side with his staff, one hand raised in that worshipful admiration which beseems him so well; and the sweet affection, divine majesty, of the Boy Jesus leaves nothing to desire, even when he says : " Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business ? "

We have given the traditional treatment of this dolor, and the action of the Divine Child, from Giotto to our own decade, these traditions being altogether on the side of fealty on the part of the Virgin-Mother herself; on the part of her Son, everything which endears youth to age; setting on the brow of the Boy Jesus, of twelve years, that aureole of meekness which beautified His cruciform nimbus as the Redeemer of men.

From The Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary By By Eliza Allen Starr 

The Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. 2.— The Flight Into Egypt

Flight into Egypt - Fra Angelico

Our Second Dolor is heralded by a pageant and a tragedy, and neither pageant nor tragedy can be overlooked in its contemplation. The vision of three Wise Men, who were kings as well, crossing the desert on their camels, led by an inspiration from heaven to seek Him whose coming was to be heralded by a star, and that star burning steadily in the clear sky of the Orient with a brilliancy altogether unheard of; the visit of these three Wise Men, kings as well, to Herod, King of Judah, in the holy city of Jerusalem; and, obedient to the prophecies, turning to the little town of Bethlehem, there to find the One whom they sought, not in kingly state, but lying in a manger; there, also, to offer to this Babe of days their precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, —the whole has passed into the poetry and the art of all succeeding ages, and even into modern story.

We speak literally when we say of all succeeding ages. It was one of the favorite subjects of the first, second and third centuries on the walls of catacomb chambers; and when the Arch of Triumph lifted its head in Santa Maria Maggiore, our three Kings were there, and so was the star, and so were Herod and the unwilling readers of holy prophecy; and the Divine Babe was there receiving their gifts. And the tragedy was there also; and the wail of the Bethlehem infants and the frantic cries of their mothers were lifted up in testimony to the Incarnation, to which the whole arch is a monument.

But our actual dolor, " The Flight," was not one to be treated easily in mosaic. Landscapes at that early time were very rarely attempted, and had little interest for the primitive Christians, whose minds were so seriously occupied by the fundamental dogmas of a religion for which they might at any time be called to die. The accessories, therefore, of " The Flight" being technically difficult, they included all its significance in those graphic representations, of the Murder of the Holy Innocents, which are still to be found among the cathedral treasures of Southern Europe.

We cannot suppose Our Lady to have been actually present at any of those scenes so brutally enacted at the command of Herod; but that visit of the angel to Saint Joseph in his sleep, saying, " Arise, and take the Child and His Mother, and fly into Egypt; and be there until I shall tell thee; for it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy Him," opened to Mary all the possibilities of the danger before her. Saint Matthew is the only one of the Evangelists to give this narrative; but it is told by him so circumstantially, that this Second Dolor stands as sharply defined as Simeon's prophecy was vague, and which she now reads with an awful sense of what is still to come.

Archbishop Kenrick, in his note upon this passage in Saint Matthew's Gospel, says : " It is probable that immediately after
their (i.e., the Wise Men's) departure, the Child was brought to Jerusalem to be presented in the Temple." Then, in another note following immediately, he says of the dream : " This took place probably as Joseph, after the presentation, was on his way to Nazareth." The Gospel tells us that he arose and " took the Child and His Mother by night, and retired into Egypt."

This subject could not fail to have been treated in the miniatures which illustrated so lavishly and so touchingly all the choir books of the Middle Age monasteries; and even in the large representations of the Murder of the Holy Innocents it comes into the backgrounds, especially in architectural decorations of churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, as Notre Dame de Chartres ; and in Mrs. Jameson's " Legends of the Madonna" we are told, in a note, that it is " conspicuously and elegantly treated over the door of the Lorenz Kirche at Nuremberg;" indicated, as she remarks, rather than represented.

But while we are preparing ourselves for disappointment in our search for early representations of this dolor in its entirety, we find to our delight, in spite of technical difficulties as to mosaic, the whole story, pageant, tragedy, and flight, beautifully given in the second row of mosaics encrusting the domed ceiling of the ancient baptistery of Florence. These wonderful mosaics date to the year 1213, and were begun by Andrea Tafi, assisted by Gaddo Gaddi, a friend- of Cimabue; and by Apollonio, a Greek master, under whom both Andrea Tafi and Gaddo Gaddi had learned their art. This row begins with the Annunciation to Our Lady, the Visitation to Saint Elizabeth, the Nativity; and next comes the visit of the Magi, their dream in which they are warned to return another way into their own country, which they do in a sail-boat; then the Presentation in the Temple followed by Saint Joseph's Dream, in which an angel communicates the danger awaiting the Holy Child, and the actual Flight. The gentle animal on which Our Lady is seated with her Child is led by an angel, but the Child Himself stands on His Mother's knee and points the way, while Saint Joseph follows the holy group; and the Murder of the Innocents occupies the next compartment. The vivacity with which these groups are executed would make them perfectly intelligible to a child.

Still, the event can hardly be said to have been treated as a dolor, except in choir books, before the year 1400—that century in which rare tenderness of devotion quickened the imaginations of so many gifted sons of Italy. It is on the wall of a cell in the Monastery of San Marco, Florence, that we find our Flight treated as a dolor, with no other idea in mind; for it was painted there by the hand of the Angelical Brother who painted but for one purpose on these convent walls—which was to assist the meditations of the Brothers who dwelt there, whose lives were shaped and colored by the indwelling thought, not by the execution of the picture whatever it might be.

And what is this picture which, in despite of four centuries, keeps its place in every work of art, and challenges the critic with any or all of its imperfections? A barren landscape, hills and valleys, with here and there an abode more or less humble, and far off a line of the sea; just four trees, shaped for all the world like the toy trees of a child's Christmas-box. Edging the path is delicate herbage, as if it had sprung up at the moment from the atmosphere of this group; and close to us the barest outline of a mouse-colored donkey, such as we see in Italy, but living and moving, and intent on accomplishing his journey. No bridle, no rein of any sort; but we know the donkey is on the right path, that he will not falter or need urging or stumble; for on his back is seated the gentlest rider that a donkey ever bore,—the gentlest rider and the most wonderful; for she is a Virgin-Mother, and she holds to her. cheek, without a thought of aught else in the world, the promised One of Israel, the Messias of her people; the Redeemer of the whole human race, foretold to Adam and Eve even after their sin, and now come; the very Word Himself made flesh and committed to her arms, while the nation that should welcome Him and the king who should bow down to Him are seeking His life. Her soul is utterly abandoned to this one thought, all the instincts of motherhood inspiring her to shield Him, while the tender face is calm even in the anguish of her heart; and this anguish to be divined only by a gentle lifting of the eyes heavenward, and a pressure, which we feel rather than see, of the hands that hold her Babe to her cheek; while the Infant looks into His Mother's face with a confidence which assures her that all will be well. Saint Joseph follows with a step as firm, as untiring as that of the patient animal that needs no urging. The white locks fall in waves on his shoulders from under a close cap; but the simplicity of the drawing gives us a deep, far-seeing eye, and the profile of a face as intelligent in heavenly things as it is benign. He carries, on a stick over his shoulder, the garments for his family, and in his hands certain utensils which you know will be used when they pause to rest. The soul of the picture could be given in a circle which would enclose the head of the Mother, of the Child, and the encircling arms and hands. The terror which seized her when Joseph gently roused her from her sleep, told her of the vision and of the command, still freezes her; we see that she has but one care—to shield her Infant from "the terrors of the way."

A more direct contrast to this conception of our dolor could not be found than " The Flight," by Titian. A glorious landscape, umbrageous trees, a beautiful Mother and sleeping Babe, a foster-father; but, nearly lost in the magnificence of the landscape as they are, we feel that they were introduced as an after-thought, to give significance and perhaps tenderness to the scene. It is the world's way of looking at all these events simply as events and circumstances pointing the story. Pinturicchio, in one of his pictures in Sant' Onofrio, Rome, has rendered the Flight with all the hurry and trepidation which is usually seen in figures fleeing from imminent danger of any sort; and in the background we see the brutal Murder of the Innocents and the distracted mothers. Guido represents the Holy Family flying on foot; while Nicolas Pous-sin embarks them in a row-boat, with angels in the air bearing a cross.

We turn from all these—for our dolor is not to be found in them—and come to an artist in our own century who has given this dolor in all the supernatural environment that belongs to it, and with a charm which should convince us, once for all, that it is not the century in which we find a picture, nor the technique, however perfect, which has produced it, which makes its value (and this not only for one age but for all time), but the mind which has meditated upon, the soul which has apprehended, actually laid hold of the mystery contained in the event; and the sensibility which has come in touch with the subtlest chords in the human Heart of Mary, the human Heart of Jesus Himself. Only by a transporting of one's whole self into this subject can any artist in the least hope to put before our eyes what the Flight really was as an event even, and what it will continue to be as a dolor so long as there is one heart left on earth to compassionate that Mother guarding her Divine Infant with her virginal arms from "the terrors of the way." These two precious pictures are included by Overbeck in his " Forty Illustrations of the Four Gospels." The first of these two gives us the Dream. This Holy Family, whose never-to-be-spoken joy had come to it in the Stable of Bethlehem, had paused for the night, it would seem, in another stable, or perhaps courtyard accessible to travellers ; for we discern faintly the patient donkey unbridled at his crib in the background; while sitting on the bare floor, supported by the wall, we see Saint Joseph, his staff in his hand, in a deep sleep; made apparent by the one hand hanging limp over his knees, and by the very soles of the feet pressing on the floor, supporting him equally with the wall; a deep, deep sleep. Opposite Saint Joseph, sitting also on the bare floor, is the Virgin-Mother just leaning against the wall, one foot partly beyond her robe, the head under its mantle bent until the cheek touches the head of her Child; a very brooding of the nestling, folded—O how closely !—in her arms ; one hand of exquisite grace sustaining her elbow, to make a cradle for her darling, her first-born, of whom no slumber can make her, for one instant, unconscious. Near Saint Joseph, on a rude block of stone, stands a lamp.

But what apparition is this flooding the bare stable with a heavenly radiance ? An angel, fair and strong, vested, girded and winged, bends in haste over Saint Joseph; one hand points downward to the sleeping Mother and her Babe; the other, with a wonderfully speaking gesture, points outward and onward; and just outside the open wall we see the Mother and her still sleeping Babe, placed by Joseph's strong and gentle arms on the donkey. Above them is the fragment of an arch; and still above, in the clear, wintry air of a February night, is the crescent moon. We understand it all. Joseph, roused at once from his deep sleep, knew that he had seen a vision, understood the voice, the command. The donkey was led from his crib ; the Mother was roused without awakening the Child, and placed securely on his back, and the flight was begun ; a flight, because made suddenly but without any trepidation; and we expect to see them—just as we do see them afterward, by the hand of the Angelical Brother on the wall of a cell in San Marco—two scenes in one act.

But our second picture ? Nothing that we can recall in all the representations of the Murdered Innocents in the least equals the heartbreak of this scene. The little ones are dead,—and so beautiful in death that the hymn of Prudentius, of the fourth century, comes to mind : Ye lovely flowers of martyrs, hail!

Two lie directly before us like twins, one over the other; but the group of six mothers fills the foreground. One bears her dead infant on her knees, with uplifted arms; another buries her face, but she cannot bury her grief, in her hands; a third throws herself on the ground over her dead child and bewails him, with such tears as angels only-can dry; a fourth lays the little lifeless face to her cheek, as if trying to bring it back to life by her caresses; but the fifth, her back toward us, sees her child dead, does not touch him, but mourns, with one hand to her tortured brain, the other hanging listlessly over the little form on the ground before her; and a sixth we see rushing off* in wild despair, her hands to her ears as if to forget the death-wail of her darling.

All this in the foreground. But a middle distance comes in, the court of the Temple it might be; and up the many steps flies a mother, her child hugged frantically to her shoulder, and pursued by a murderer, who actually clutches her robe, threatens the child with his dagger; and still higher, within the portico, is another, whose child has been wrenched from her by one foot, but clinging to it still even while the murderous wound is being given.

Quite to the left stretches a line of arches, and we see—what ? The Virgin-Mother closely veiled, looking neither to the right nor to the left, her Babe held close to her cheek; the donkey ambling gently, without rein or bridle, through one of the arches; Saint Joseph following, as if the wind stirred his mantle, a bundle over his shoulder, and looking backward. O Virgin-Mother, have you heard the cry of one of these murdered Innocents, the wail of one of these mothers? And do you bear in your compassionate Heart, adding still another pang to your own dolor, the sorrows of the mothers of Bethlehem, while knowing that you are saving, by your flight, their Redeemer and your own ?

From The Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary By By Eliza Allen Starr 

The Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin. 1.—The Presentation in the Temple.

Like a budding almond branch on which has fallen the light snows of February, comes the double feast of the Presentation and of the Purification. " The lonely heights of Mary's holiness," on which a Saint Jerome meditated with rapture, are tinged, to-day, like snowy Alpine summits at dawn, with the warmth of maternal love. She knows, this Maiden-Mother of the lineage of David, that she is returning to those who blessed her on the day of her espousals, crowned as a mother only is crowned,—returning to those under whose eye she conned the prophecies, and who are still " looking for the redemption of Israel." She knows they will welcome her first-born Son with unspeakable tenderness, unspeakable joy; but will they recognize the Redeemer, promised for four thousand years, in the Babe nestling to her breast, cradled on her arm ?

What could be more tenderly beautiful, more tenderly joyful, than Mary as she stands before the benign high-priest; while Joseph, her spouse, stands beside her, bearing the two turtle-doves which are to redeem this firstborn Son as, truly, a Son of Abraham ? But the question still rises in her heart, " Will they recognize Him who has been promised ?" when a wave of awe, as profound as her joys, floods her soul, thrills every faculty of her mind, as, moving forth from the deep shadows of the porticos of the Temple, comes the aged Simeon—a man upon whom all Israel looks with a hush of veneration; for to him it [has been promised that he "shall not see death before he has seen the Christ of the Lord." And now he advances to the little group of Mary and Joseph; and, taking the Child into his arms, he breaks forth into a hymn of praise, blessing God and saying: " Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word, in peace; because my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and to the glory of Thy people, Israel."

Close upon the steps of Simeon comes the prophetess Anna, giving praise to God, and " speaking of the Child to all who are looking for the redemption of Israel." And the holy radiance of Mary's face takes on a rapture which says: " They have seen Him who was to come!"

Ages on ages have come and gone, eternal cycles have been entered upon; but Mary never has forgotten, never will forget, that moment of holy exultation in her virginal maternity ! It is the voice of Simeon which breaks in upon the trance of bliss into which this double recognition of her Son, as truly the Messiah of God, has thrown her soul,—the voice of Simeon, as he spreads his aged hands over this group of three and blesses them ; then speaks to Mary, still folding her Son to her heart, as if a new inspiration had come to his soul: " Behold, this Child is set for the ruin and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed."

O brief moment of perfect joy—a joy born of heaven without one alloy of earth, and yet as transient as mortal air could make it!

The delicacy with which this narrative is limned by the pen of the Evangelist, Saint Luke, and the tender significance of this first sorrow in the life of the Blessed Virgin, gave this subject a place in the series upon series in the early catacombs. For, contrary to the impression fixed in the minds of so many even among Catholics, the incidents connected with the infancy and childhood of our Lord were dwelt upon by the Christian artists, who wrought out their pious conceptions of these events on the stucco laid over tufa walls before the year 200, or even 100, of the Christian era, in the underground cemetery of a Saint Priscilla or Saint Domitilla, Pretextatus or Saturninus ; precisely as, in later centuries, the apses of the Middle Age churches were enriched by them to the admiration of our own times.

It was from these series of paintings, especially those in Saint Priscilla's Catacomb, in which he was deposited after his death, that Celestine I. caught the inspiration which led him to plan their reproduction on the Arch of Triumph in Santa Maria Maggiore —a plan carried out by his successor, Sixtus III. On this Arch of Triumph the narrative of Saint Luke concerning the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple has been set in the most delicately tinted mosaic, with a vivacity which delights us. The whole scene is enacted in a portico of the Temple. We see Mary, richly attired, bearing her Infant in her arms, Saint Joseph at her side, standing before the high-priest, who is followed by other priests; and toward them are hastening the aged Simeon and devout Anna ; while doves and pigeons, in allusion to the modest offering of Saint Joseph, are seen in a flock at one side. This is on the upper line of scenes represented on the arch opposite the Annunciation, showing how conspicuously the event shone forth to the minds of those Christians of the fifth century ; all of which is sustained by the importance given to the festival itself.

We find in Martigny's " Dictionnaire des Antiquites Chretiennes," under the head of "Immovable Feasts," that "on the 2d of February a feast is celebrated which, in all the martyrologies of the Latins, is entitled Purificatio S. Marice Virginis, et Hipapanti Domini nostri. By this last title, the Greeks designed to keep in memory the meeting of Simeon with our Lord in the Temple. The institution of this festival mounts to the highest antiquity; is distinctly mentioned by Saint Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 396), and by many other Fathers, whose testimony is united by the Bollandists; and there are very ancient formulas for the blessing of the candles;" by which quotation we see how much stress was laid upon Simeon's recognition of Our Lord, and, we must infer, upon his prophecy of sorrow to Our Lady.

The Byzantine period has left one of its most interesting compositions to illustrate the Presentation. The aged Simeon, standing on a small dais, holds the Divine Child on his hands, as if returning Him to His Mother, toward whom He is stretching forth one little hand; and the Mother responds by extending her own to Him. Saint Joseph bears the turtle-doves at her side; while Saint Anna is seen over the bowed shoulders of Simeon, her hands raised, as if in joy and admiration.

But in the series of pictures representing the life of the Blessed Virgin by Giotto, in the Church of Saint Francis at Assisi, one of his loveliest groups displays the Presentation. The architecture of the Temple's interior affords an imposing background, with every possible adornment; and the grouping is arranged, symmetrically indeed, but effectively. The venerable Simeon, with eyes raised to heaven in thanksgiving, bears the Child in his arms with exceeding love ; while the Babe leans toward its Mother, who stands with outstretched hands to receive Him. Immediately at her side are Saint Joseph and several persons, old and young, attracted by an incident certainly not uncommon, excepting for the remarkable circumstances attending it; for near to Simeon is the prophetess Anna, who is addressing, most earnestly, another group of thoughtful persons; while one has prostrated herself, with her hands stretched forth toward the Child, as if welcoming the Redeemer of Israel. The whole is in Giotto's best manner, without a trace of Byzantine formality.

From this time, every series illustrating the life of the Blessed Virgin—as the twenty-eight compartments in the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Orvieto, or the series by Duccio of Siena—may be understood as giving the Presentation. The German schools do not neglect it; and Van Eyck gives an elegant version of the story without neglecting a single circumstance mentioned in the Scripture narrative. Most certainly we may expect to see it in the several series painted by the immortal Fra Angelico, not only in his choral books and in the cells of San Marco, but on the presses of the sacristy of the Camaldo-line convent; and we do find it.

The ornate arches of Giotto's interior give place to a long avenue of columns, supporting narrow, round arches, which reminds one of a monastic ambulatory, and giving one also a feeling of the deepest serenity. There are no groups in waiting, no lookers-on. Simeon holds the Child—more than this, presses Him to his cheek; wraps Him, as it were, with his aged hands. One can hear him, in tremulous notes, chanting his Dimittis. The Child does not turn from him, as in the picture by Giotto or Van Eyck, in fear; but nestles to the wrinkled cheek, and His eyes almost close under the soothing pressure of that holy embrace. Mary's hands are raised, not to call Him to her, but as if she had just laid her Treasure into Simeon's waiting arms; and her look is one of peace. At her side, or rather following her, is Saint Joseph with the turtle-doves, a sweet smile on his face; for he hears only the welcome given to the Babe, sees only the love which greets Him.

Opposite this group we see Anna, hastening forward, her hands joined in rapture, declaring the coming of Him for whom all Israel is waiting. It is never quite safe to say where the charm lies in one of the Angelicas compositions ; for the charm is over it as a whole, by reason of the spirit which inspired it. One thing is certain : Fra Angelico could never overlook Mary's part in the prophecy, " A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people, Israel;" followed by those words which never ceased to echo in her heart: " Behold, this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. And thy own soul a sword shall pierce. 0 Simeon knew, when he uttered these words, that the sword at that very moment pierced the Heart of Mary. Fra Angelico feels this—feels that the tender joy which was so justly hers, as we should say, had been disturbed, never more to rest; and all that sympathy which people of the world, even, feel for a first grief, was in the soul of the Angelical.
Therefore, while he gives her an expression of peace, it is the peace of perfect resignation j the repeating of that word by which she accepted her part in the mystery of the Incarnation—" Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy word."

Fra Bartolomeo was a monk, a Dominican monk; but how differently than to the Angelical this scene came before his mind's eye! The Divine Child, in all His beauty, is held on Simeon's arms; one foot rests in Mary's loving palm, and He looks out on the world with one hand raised in blessing, the other on His baby-breast—an enchanting picture of infancy, and that a Divine Infancy. Saint Joseph bears the turtle-doves most gently; one sees also the kneeling figure of a nun ; another figure, standing with an aureole, may be Saint Anna. Simeon himself is most benign, but his eyes look into Mary's as if he were at this very moment speaking to her of this Child, to be "the fall and resurrection of many in Israel, a sign which shall be contradicted ; " while " the sword is to pierce her own soul also;" for there is compassion on his face, and on Mary's the tenderest shade of sorrow.

In a niche on the wall we see Moses with his horns of power, and a scroll in hand, on which is the command which Mary has obeyed with such simplicity, as if she had needed purification after giving birth to the Redeemer who had saved her, from the first moment of her own conception, from any shadow of sin. The picture itself is one of consummate skill, of the most beautiful technique and delicate sentiment; one on which rests the fame of the brother-monk of Fra Angelico and worthy of San Marco.

In the Vatican Gallery is one of Raphael's youthful conceptions, a " Coronation of the Blessed Virgin;" her empty tomb, filled with growing lilies and roses, around which stand the Apostles, wondering. This picture had three smaller pictures attached to it as a predella, or footstool; and one of these gave the Presentation and Purification under a portico of the Temple, with a vista leading to its very interior. When the still young  Raphael went to Rome at the call of Julius II., he must have felt a little like wondering at himself to find that he had represented this event more according to the idea of the old artist who had put it in mosaic on the Arch of Triumph in Santa Maria Maggiore, than like any other picture he had ever seen. It is, in fact, wonderfully like while unlike.

The central group gives us the high-priest, who is returning the Child to His Mother, having " done for Him according to the law." Opposite Blessed Mary stands Simeon; and the eyes of the high-priest, like those of Simeon, are bent upon her with the tenderest compassion, while the Child goes to her grieved, and she receives Him grieving. One little hand touches her bosom, the other is raised as if to console her,—as if He were saying: " I know you are grieved for Me, that I must be a contradiction to My generation, a word to be spoken against. And I, My Mother, grieve for you." Never, in one of the school of Siena's tenderest pictures, was there a more sympathetic look between Son and Mother than in this early picture by Raphael.

I often think this Sorrow, or Dolor, might be made the special devotion of the young. How often I have heard them say, how often when young have I said myself: u If I could only know what to expect ! " Everything in the prophecy of Simeon is vague. The when, the how, the what, utterly indefinite—not even an outline to shadow forth its possible circumstances j lying off on the dim horizon, ready to assume shapes too dreadful to imagine. The first sorrow, the altogether indefinite sorrow, it belongs to the young to compassionate Our Lady with all the tenderness and sympathy so natural to youthful, untried hearts. To carry out this idea, the personages on either side of Raphael's central group are young—at least none are old ; and all seem to partake, by their pensive expression, in this first grief of the Mother of a Babe so lovely as to stir envy in all who behold Him.

So far from giving every attractive example of the treatment of this Dolor in art, we have chosen those only which were most significant as to date or character. The subject has never lost its charm for great artists: for those whose inspirations are drawn from sources rich in associations teeming with thought. In our own age, " The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple " has made one of Overbeck's immortal illustrations, forty in number, which should be the treasure-trove of every institution for the young, pouring over the Sacred Text floods of a right understanding and a beauty-loving erudition.

Three arcades, through which come charming distances, frame in the principal group with its accessories. Strongly relieved against the open sky, stands Simeon, bowed with years, bearing lovingly on his arms the gracious Child, and looking adoringly into His eyes; singing softly, as if to himself, his Dimittis. Two young girls kneel before this seemingly temporary altar on which are offered the oblations of the first-born in Israel,—one bearing the turtle-doves, the other a lighted taper. And Mary, Virgin-Mother? Her hands in the mantle that wraps her whole figure, leaving only the beautiful, tender, virgin face, bending pensively like a lily on its stem, the bright aureole over her head, standing between the whole world, which is to contradict Him, and her Divine Son,—shielding the whole group, as it were, by the majesty of her first Dolor !

We see Anna, the aged prophetess, approaching Simeon, her lifted hands welcoming the promised Deliverer of His people; we see groups of mothers and beautiful children. But Mary sees no one: her first Dolor wraps her as closely as does her blue mantle.