The intimate relationship and shared mission between the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son can be glimpsed in various short accounts in the New Testament.  These are given particular attention in the Gospel of Saint Luke.

What has captured the imaginations and hearts of Christians from the earliest centuries is Luke’s allusion to the role Blessed Mary has as mother and first disciple, as the faithful and living memory of God’s salvific actions.  She, in a sense becomes though often silent, the apex or Queen of all the ancient prophets and prophesies.

In Luke 2:19 we hear that Mary “kept/treasured (Gk: syneterei) all these things”, that is all the remarkable events and signs of the world’s redemption.  Further “she ponders (Gk: symballousa) them in her heart.”

The emphasis in the first two chapters of Saint Luke’s Gospel is the eruption of joy and ‘good news’ into human history with the coming of the Messiah.  However the greatest joy, which we are assured is fulfilled in the final victory of Christ, is in this life, still accompanied by passing but real grief.  We know that the more we love and hope and have faith- the more we feel the pain of loss or suffering.

In the early Middle Ages, writers in the tradition of the Dominican genius, Saint Albert the Great (1193-1280), saw the Blessed Mother as the transformed mother of all “the living” – a New Eve (with the word play: AVE:EVA).  Mary’s empathetic closeness to her Son’s suffering gave Christians a sense of her closeness to their griefs and tribulations.

One popular book of the time called her “adiutrix Redemptoris” – the helpmate of the Redeemer- sharing his load and suffering alongside him near the Cross.   This is a direct reference to Eve, created as ‘helpmate’ companion, co-worker or collaborator with Adam in Genesis 2:18.  Here Our Lady is the redeemed woman standing behind the Tree of Life, the Cross.

The monastic founders and Saints Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) and Anselm (1033-1109) in their prayers and theological reflections also entered into the emotional landscape of the Blessed Mother.  

They wrote that she complemented the redemptive work of Christ.  While Christ was tortured and crucified ‘crucifixio’- for the salvation of the world, she was ‘transfixio’ – pierced by suffering with Him- literally sharing in the love of the world by her compassion with her beloved Son and in her willing co-operation with His Divine mission. 

Many women saints imagined themselves beside the Blessed Mother and some had spiritual visions which brought these experiences to life.

The mystic, Saint Birgetta (Bridget) of Sweden (1303-1373), who was a widow, mother of eight children and then a contemplative sister, seems to have introduced the practice of meditating on moments of the Blessed Virgin’s suffering which can be found in the Scriptures – from the time of Christ’s Infancy to His death on the Cross using the beads of the Rosary.   This devotional practice became immensely popular throughout Western Europe.  

At the time, in the German lands the Church was fracturing.  There was social and religious unrest and protest was becoming widespread, icons of the Virgin Mary were being attacked in the misguided bid to promote a more purified and scriptural Christianity.  Catholics were horrified at this and decided that a Feast Day of Our Lady of Compassion (or Our Lady of Dolours or Sorrows) would be declared.  This combined the devotion to the Virgin Mary and scripturally based meditation.

Over the next weeks, with the help of some of our Anima Women- will travel through the ‘seven’ aspects of Mary’s compassion and grief- combining the September and October memoria- of the Sorrows and the Rosary

~ Anna Krohn

Mary, powerful in goodness, and good in power, from whom was born the fount of mercy, I pray you, do not withhold such true mercy where you know there is such true misery.  

St Anselm

The Seven Dolours/Sorrows or “Swords” in the Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

Simeon’s Prophecy              Luke 11:35

The Flight into Egypt            Matt 11:13

The Loss and Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple         Luke 11:45

Jesus Meets his Mother & Other Women Via Crucis    Luke23: 27

St John and Our Lady at the Cross       John 19:26

Pieta- The Descent from the Cross     John 19: 41-42

The Rolling Away of the Stone         Matthew  27:60