CHAPTER I ++++++++The Martyrdom of Mary++++++++ SECTION VI THE WAY IN WHICH THE CHURCH PUTS OUR LADY'S DOLORS BEFORE US  Such is a general description of the dolors of Mary. The Church puts them before us as part of the Gospel, as one of the facts of the Gospel, and as an object of special devotion. Marchese, in his Diario di Maria, mentions an old tradition, which would carry devotion to the sorrows of our Blessed Lady up to Apostolic times. Some years after her death, while St. John the Evangelist was still grieving over his loss and longing to see her face again, it pleased our Blessed Lord to appear to him in a vision, accompanied by His Mother. The sorrows of Mary, together with her frequent visits to the holy places of the Passion, were naturally a constant subject of devout contemplation to the Evangelist, who had watched over the last fifteen years of her life; and, as if it were in response to these continual meditations, he heard her ask Jesus to grant some especial favor to those who should keep her dolors in remembrance. Our Lord replied that He would grant four particular graces to all those who should practice this devotion. The first was a perfect contrition of all their sins some time before death; the second was a particular protection in the hour of death; the third was to have the mysteries of the Passion deeply imprinted in their minds; and the fourth a particular power of impetration granted to Mary's prayers on their behalf. St. Bridget relates in the seventh book of her revelations that she saw in a vision, in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, the immense price which was set in Heaven upon the dolors of Mary. To the Blessed Benvenuta, the Dominicaness, it was granted to feel in her soul the sorrow which our Lady suffered during the Three Days' Loss. The Blessed Veronica of Binasco had several revelations regarding this devotion, in one of which, as related by the Bollandists, our Lord said that tears shed over His Mother's sorrows were more acceptable to Him than those which are shed over His own Passion. In like manner Gianius, in his history of the Servites, relates that, when Innocent IV was raised to the Apostolic chair, he felt some alarm regarding the new order of the Servites of Mary. There were several false and counterfeit religions, which had troubled the Church about that time, the Poor of Lyons, the so-called Apostolic Men, the Flagellants, and the followers of William de Saint Amour, and the pope was anxious to assure himself that the Servites, lately instituted near Florence, were not of the same character as these. He therefore commissioned St. Peter Martyr, the Dominican, to investigate the matter. Our Lady appeared to the inquisitor in a vision. He saw a lofty mountain, covered with flowers, and bathed in shining light. and on the summit of it sat the Mother of God as on a throne, while Angels offered garlands of flowers before her. After this they presented to her seven lilies of exceeding whiteness, which she placed for a moment in her bosom, and then wreathed them like a diadem round her head. These seven lilies, as she explained the vision to Pietro, were the seven Founders of the Servites, whom she had herself inspired to institute the new order in honor of the dolors which she suffered in the Passion and Death of Jesus. When St. Catherine of Bologna was one day weeping bitterly over our Lady's sorrows, she suddenly saw seven Angels near her, weeping also, and joining their tears with hers. But it would not be difficult to compile a whole volume of visions and revelations regarding the dolors of Mary. The reader will find abundance of them in two books especially, both of which are of easy access, Marchese's Diario di Maria, and Sinischalchi's Martirio del Cuore di Maria: the first writer was an Oratorian and the second a Jesuit. This devotion has received the highest sanction of the Church, for it enters both into the Missal and the Breviary. Two distinct feasts are appointed in honor of these sorrows; one falls in September, and the other on the Friday in Passion Week. The Rosary of the Seven Dolors, as well as several other devotions, have been richly indulgenced. Among these may be mentioned the Hymn Stabat Mater, an hour at any time of the year spent in meditation on the Dolors, an exercise in honor of her sorrowing heart, seven Aves with the Sancia Mater istud agas, another exercise for the last ten days of the carnival, and an hour or half an hour's prayer on Good Friday and other Fridays. Nothing, therefore, is wanting to the sanction of this devotion, nor has the Church spared any means to attract her children to it. She has, however, especially selected seven of Mary's sorrows for our more peculiar devotion. She has embedded them by means of antiphons in the Divine office, and she has made them the seven mysteries of the Rosary of the Dolors. They are, Simeon's prophecy, the Flight into Egypt, the Three Days' Loss, the Meeting Jesus with the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Taking down from the Cross, the Burial of Jesus. Thus, in one way of dividing them, three belong to our Lord's Infancy, and four to His Passion. Or, again, one covers His whole life, two His Infancy, and four His Passion. Or, again, one puts before us all the Thirty-Three Years, two the Child Jesus, two Jesus Suffering, and two Jesus Dead. These seven are mysterious samples of her multitudinous other sorrows, and we shall find, perhaps, that they are types of all human sorrow whatsoever. The seven chapters, therefore, which follow will consider one by one these seven dolors, observing the same simple and easy method in the investigation of all of them. Each dolor will present four points for our consideration: first, the circumstances of the mystery itself, secondly, its peculiarities, thirdly, our Lady's dispositions in it, and fourthly, its lessons to ourselves. A ninth chapter will be added on the Compassion of Mary, in order to explain the relation in which it stands to the Passion, whether it had any share in the redemption of the world, and what the true meaning is of those puzzling expressions, co-redemptress, and the like, which are sometimes found in approved writers on the grandeurs of Mary. E-MAIL HOME-------BACK TO THE SORROWS OF MARY--------THE PASSION www.catholictradition.org/Passion/cross1-6.htm