Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother

DEVOTION TO THE SORROWFUL MOTHER. - A devotion that commemorates the sorrows of the Virgin Mary during the various events of her earthly life. It has a solid basis in the Gospel, and owes its origin to the contemplation and meditation of the Passion of Christ. Rare and vague, however, are the documents of the early Christian age. Beginning with Origen (who misinterprets the words of Simeon's prophecy), most of the Fathers contain more or less open allusions to Mary's compassion.

Only toward the end of the 11th century, prepared by ascetical literature, did it begin to establish itself in an ever clearer and more distinct manner. Especially worthy of mention in this regard are St. Anselm (cf. A. Wilmart, Prières de Compassion, in Vie Spir., Supplm. [March 1928], p. 269; id. Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge latin, p. 506), Eadmer of Canterbury, Blessed Guerric abbot of Igny, St. Amadeus of Lausanne, Honorius of Autun, Ogier the Abbot, Arnold of Bonneval and St. Bernard (PL 183, 429 ff., 437 ff.). The Liber de Passione Christi et dolore et planctu Matris eius, although it was for a long time attributed to St. Bernard, nevertheless belongs to another author, hitherto unknown. From this time onward in rituals, in the various offices, in collections of prayers, the sorrows of Jesus are in worship ever more associated with those of Mary. We have an example of this also in the Vitis mystica of St. Bonaventure (ch. X) and in the various popular Laudi of the 13th century, especially in Italy and Tuscany. This spontaneous devotional movement led, in 1233, to the institution of the Order of the Servants of Mary through the work of the Seven Holy Founders, who, from the Legenda de origine Ordinis - a contemporary document - are presented as « Dominae nostrae praecipui amatores » (Monumenta Ord. Serv. B. M. V., I, n. 18, p. 73). The black habit that they wore was, according to the cited document, a mourning habit, intended to recall « the sorrow that the Virgin suffered in the most bitter passion of her Son » (loc. cit., n. 52, p. 98). While the Franciscan devotional movement preferred to contemplate the happy Mother at the manger, that of the Servites loved to concentrate on Mary sorrowing beside the Cross of her Son. It was precisely in the 13th century, in fact, that the first images of the A. [Addolorata] appeared and some sanctuaries dedicated to Her began to arise, such as that of Marienthal, near Haguenau (in lower Alsace). Extremely numerous, especially in that century, were the compositions, in various languages, both in prose and in verse, entitled The Lament of the Virgin. Worthy of note among these compositions is « the lament of Mary » contained in the Stimulus divini amoris of the Minorite friar Girolamo da Milano, falsely attributed to St. Bonaventure.

To the 13th-14th century, as appears from the codex of the Garsten ms. Collection (Cod. Lincen C e II 6) and from other codices of that time, dates the determination of the seven principal sorrows of Mary, corresponding to the one already in use of the seven principal joys (cf. E. Mâle, L'art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France, Paris 1908, pp. 118-40; A. Wilmart, op. cit., pp. 505-36). This, according to Benedict XIV and other writers, would be due to the Seven Holy Founders of the Order of the Servites.

The strange thesis maintained by H. Gaidoz is scarcely worthy of mention, according to which the Seven Holy Founders would have drawn their inspiration from an Assyrian cylinder (preserved in the British Museum) that passed from the East to the West during the Middle Ages, representing Ishtar, the goddess of war, seated upon a throne and surrounded by a trophy of arms arranged in the form of a fan behind her. This strange thesis was refuted by the Bollandist I. Delehaye (La Vierge aux sept glaives, in Anal. Bolland., 12 [1893], p. 338 ff.). Gaidoz replied in Mélusine (6, [1893], pp. 226-75), but with evident lack of success.

Also the very popular Stabat Mater (v.), of uncertain authorship, attributed for the most part to Jacopone da Todi, dates back to that era.

Toward the close of the 15th century, through the work of the priest Giovanni di Coudenberg, dean of St. Giles of Abbenbroec (Holland) and later secretary of Charles V, there arose in Flanders the Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, approved by the Pope in 1495 (cf. Anal. Bolland., 12 [1893], p. 340) and subsequently propagated with much zeal in various parts of the world. In order to spread ever more the cult of the A., the Servites have brought to life, at various times, many pious practices, such as the Crown of the Seven Sorrows (16th century), the Pious Union of the Perpetual Cult of the Living Crown of the A. (which arose in Florence toward the beginning of the 19th century), the pious exercise of the Via Matris (which arose in Rome, in the church of S. Marcello al Corso, in 1836), the Month of September in honor of the A. (which arose toward the middle of the 19th century), the Seven Fridays in preparation for the feast of the A. (of recent origin), etc.

The liturgical commemoration of the sorrows of the Virgin was made on the Friday of Passion, called the Friday of Mary's sorrows. However, Innocent XI in 1688 instituted a second feast of the A. to be celebrated with greater solemnity outside the season of Lent, fixing it on the third Sunday of September; but Pius X in 1914 established it on the 15th of the same month, because of the well-known prohibition against assigning to Sunday feasts that are not of the Lord.

Addolorata (1936), pp. 68-72; C. Berti, De cultu Septem dolorum s. Mariae, in Marianum, 2 (1940), pp. 81-86; E. Campana, Maria nel culto, I, 2nd ed., Turin 1943, pp. 260-90; I. Dissard, La Transfixion de Notre-Dame, in Etudes (1918, II), p. 2577 ff.

Gabriele M. Roschini

ICONOGRAPHY

The depictions of the Mater Dolorosa go back to the conception of a compassio Mariae which, as the Greek homilies of the 6th and 8th centuries, St. Bonaventure and other mystics understood it, unfolds alongside the passion of Christ. Already in miniatures of the end of the 13th century one sees the figure of the Virgin who, at the foot of the Crucifix, shows her breast pierced by a sword, recalling the prophecy of Simeon (Lk. 2:35); after the institution of the liturgical celebration of the sorrows of the Virgin (1423), similar figures appear, but with 507 swords in the breast, either as images standing on their own, or sometimes surrounded by representations of the seven sorrows (painting of ca. 1500 at Bruges, in Notre-Dame). Finally, in the highest spheres of art rise the statues of the A. created by Spanish polychrome sculpture of the Baroque era (Juan de Juni, Hernandez, Cano [Soledad at Granada]). - See Pl. XXIII.

Kurt Rathe