September - The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady: 2/7

Memorare, O piissima Virgo. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

September is a month in which we are invited to remember the Sorrows of Our Blessed Mother. In the days leading up to the feast of her nativity, we are reposting the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady; praying that she will enable us to renew our keen desire to offer reparation for sins, in the spirit of the prayer given to the three little seers at Fatima:

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.

The following post is the second of a series presenting the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, based on the meditations of St Alphonsus de Liguori. I have inserted references in the text to numbered footnotes. These references are not hyperlinked but may be found by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?    

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

 (From the 13th century Latin hymn, Stabat Mater Dolorosa)

The Flight of Jesus into Egypt

As the stag, wounded by an arrow, carries the pain with him wherever he goes, because he carries with him the arrow that has wounded him; thus the divine mother, after the prophecy of St. Simeon, as we saw in our consideration of the first grief, always carried her sorrow with her by the continual remembrance of the passion of her Son. Ailgrin, explaining this passage of the Canticles, “The hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channel,”[1] says: These hairs of Mary were her continual thoughts of the passion of Jesus, which kept always before her eyes the blood which was one day to flow from his wounds. Thy mind, oh Mary, and thy thoughts tinged in the blood of the passion of our Lord, were always moved with sorrow as if they actually saw the blood flowing from his wounds. Thus her Son himself was that arrow in the heart of Mary, who, the more worthy of love he showed himself to her, always wounded her the more with the sorrowful thought that she should lose him by so cruel a death.

The Flight into Egypt. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

Quem Herodem fugiens
Aegypto adduxisti:
tandem inde rediens
ad Nazareth venisti. Ave Maria.

Whom safe to Egypt thou didst bear
Whilst Herod's rage was swelling;
But bring back with maternal care,
To Nazareth thy dwelling.







Let us now pass to the consideration of the second sword of sorrow which wounded Mary, in the flight of her infant Jesus into Egypt from the persecution of Herod.

Herod having heard that the expected Messiah was born, foolishly feared that the new-born King would deprive him of his kingdom. Hence St. Fulgentius[2], reproving him for his folly, thus says; “Why, oh Herod, art thou thus disturbed? This King who is born has not come to conquer kings by arms, but to subjugate them, in a wonderful manner, by his death.”[3]

The impious Herod, therefore, waited to learn from the holy magi where the King was born, that he might take from him his life; but finding himself deceived by the magi, he ordered all the infants that could be found in the neighborhood of Bethlehem to be put to death. But an angel appeared in a dream to St. Joseph, and said to him: “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt.”[4] According to Gerson, immediately, on that very night, Joseph made this command known to Mary; and taking the infant Jesus, they commenced their journey, as it seems clearly from the Gospel itself: “Who arose and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt.”[5] Oh God, as blessed Albertus Magnus[6] says in the name of Mary, must He, then, who came to save men flee from men? “Debet fugere qui salvator est mundi?”

And then the afflicted Mary knew that already the prophecy of Simeon, regarding her Son, was beginning to be verified: “He is set for a sign which shall be contradicted.”[7] Seeing that scarcely is He born, when He is persecuted to death. What suffering it must have been to the heart of Mary, writes St. John Chrysostom[8], to hear the tidings of that cruel exile of herself with her Son! Flee from thy friends to strangers, from the holy temple of the only true God, to the temples of demons. What greater tribulation than that a new-born child, clinging to its mother’s bosom, should be forced to fly with the mother herself!

Every one can imagine how much Mary must have suffered on this journey. It was a long distance to Egypt. Authors generally agree with Barrada that it was four hundred miles; so that at least it was a journey of thirty days. The way, as St. Bonaventure[9] describes it, was rough, unknown, through woods, and little frequented. The season was winter, and therefore they had to travel in snow, rain, wind, and storms, and through bad and difficult roads. Mary was then fifteen years of age, a delicate virgin, unaccustomed to such journeys. They had no servant to attend them. Joseph and Mary, said St. Peter Chrysologus[10, had no man-servant nor maid-servant; they were themselves both masters and servants. Oh God, how piteous a spectacle it was to see that tender Virgin, with that newly born infant in her arms wandering through this world! St. Bonaventure asks, Where did they obtain food? Where did they rest at night? How were they lodged? What other food could they have, than a piece of hard bread which Joseph brought with him or begged in charity? Where could they have slept (particularly in the two hundred miles of desert through which they travelled, where, as authors relate, there were neither houses nor inns) except on the sand, or under some tree in the wood, in the open air, exposed to robbers, or those wild beasts with which Egypt abounded?

The Sojourn in Egypt. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum

Ah, if any one had met these three greatest personages of the world, what would he have believed them to be but three poor, roving beggars? They lived in Egypt, according to Brocard and Jansenius, in a district called Maturea, though, according to St. Anselm[11], they dwelt in Heliopolis, first called Memphis, and now Cairo. And here let us consider the great poverty they must have suffered for the seven years they were there, as St. Antoninus[12], St. Thomas, and others assert. They were foreigners, unknown, without revenues, without money, without kindred; hardly were they able to support themselves by their humble labors.

As they were destitute, says St. Basil[13], it is manifest what effort they must have made to obtain there the necessaries of life. Moreover, Landolph of Saxony[14] has written, and let it be repeated for the consolation of the poor, that so great was the poverty of Mary there, that sometimes she had not so much as a morsel of bread, when her Son, forced by hunger, asked it of her.

The return from Egypt. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum

St. Matthew also relates that when Herod was dead, the angel again appeared, in a dream, to St. Joseph, and directed him to return to Judea. St. Bonaventure, speaking of his return, considers the greater pain of the blessed Virgin, on account of the sufferings which Jesus must have endured in that journey, having arrived at about the age of seven years—an age, says the saint, when he was so large that he could not be carried, and so small that he could not go without assistance.





The sight, then, of Jesus and Mary wandering like fugitives through this world, teaches us that we should also live as pilgrims on the earth, detached from the goods which the world offers us, as having soon to leave them and go to eternity. “We have not here a lasting city, but seek one that is to come.”[15] To which St. Augustine adds: Thou art a stranger, thou givest a look, and then passest on: “Hospes es, vides et transis.” It also teaches us to embrace crosses, for we cannot live in this world without a cross.

The blessed Veronica da Binasco[16], an Augustinian nun, was carried in spirit to accompany Mary and the infant Jesus in this journey to Egypt, and at the end of it the divine mother said to her: “Child, hast thou seen through what difficulties we have reached this place? Now learn that no one receives graces without suffering.” He who wishes to feel least the sufferings of this life, must take Jesus and Mary with him: “Accipe puerum et matrem ejus.” For him who lovingly bears in his heart this Son and this mother, all sufferings become light, and even sweet and dear. Let us then love them, let us console Mary by receiving her Son within our hearts, whom, even now, men continue to persecute with their sins.

Example

One day the most holy Mary appeared to the blessed Colletta, a Franciscan nun, and showed her the infant Jesus in a basin, torn in pieces, and then said to her: “Thus sinners continually treat my Son, renewing his death and my sorrows; oh, my daughter, pray for them that they may be converted.”

Similar to this is that other vision which appeared to the venerable sister Jane, of Jesus and Mary, also a Franciscan nun. As she was one day meditating on the infant Jesus, persecuted by Herod, she heard a great noise, as of armed people, who were pursuing some one; and then appeared before her a most beautiful child, who was fleeing in great distress, and cried to her: “My Jane, help me, hide me; I am Jesus of Nazareth, I am flying from sinners who wish to kill me, and who persecute me as Herod did: do thou save me.”

Prayer

Then, oh Mary, even after thy Son hath died by the hands of men who persecuted him unto death, have not these ungrateful men yet ceased from persecuting him with their sins, and continuing to afflict thee, oh mother of sorrows? And I also, oh God, have been one of these. Ah, my most sweet mother, obtain for me tears to weep for such ingratitude. And then, by the sufferings thou didst experience in the journey to Egypt, assist me in the journey that I am making to eternity, that at length I may go to unite with thee in loving my persecuted Saviour, in the country of the blessed. Amen.

Notes

[1] [5] Thy head is like Carmel: and the hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels.
Caput tuum ut Carmelus; et comae capitis tui sicut purpura regis vincta canalibus. [Cant of Cant 7]

[2] St Fulgentius: Born 468, died 533. Bishop of Ruspe, Tunisia, and a friend of St. Augustine. Eminent among the Fathers of the Church for saintly life, eloquence and theological learning.

[3] serm 5 de Epiph

[4] [13] And after they were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, 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.
Qui cum recessissent, ecce angelus Domini apparuit in somnis Joseph, dicens : Surge, et accipe puerum, et matrem ejus, et fuge in Aegyptum, et esto ibi usque dum dicam tibi. Futurum est enim ut Herodes quaerat puerum ad perdendum eum. [Matt 2]

[5] [14] Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt: and he was there until the death of Herod:
Qui consurgens accepit puerum et matrem ejus nocte, et secessit in Aegyptum [Matt 2]

[6] Albertus Magnus,O.P. (c. 1193 – 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a German Catholic Dominican friar and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his lifetime as Doctor universalis and Doctor expertus. Late in his life, the title Magnus was appended to his name.

[7] [34] And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted;
Et benedixit illis Simeon, et dixit ad Mariam matrem ejus : Ecce positus est hic in ruinam, et in resurrectionem multorum in Israel, et in signum cui contradicetur.

[8] St John Chrsostom: c. 349 – 14 September 407); Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. Chrysostomos, means "golden-mouthed" in Greek and denotes his celebrated eloquence. He is honoured as a saint in the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic churches. The Eastern Orthodox, together with the Byzantine Catholics, hold him in special regard as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs (alongside Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus).

[9] St. Bonaventure: 1221-1274 Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Known as "the seraphic doctor". He received the name of Bonaventure in consequence of an exclamation of St. Francis of Assisi, when, in response to the pleading of the child's mother, the saint prayed for John's recovery from a dangerous illness, and, foreseeing the future greatness of the little John, cried out "O Buona ventura"-O good fortune! In Paris he became the intimate friend of the great St. Thomas Aquinas. He did much for his (Franciscan) Order and composed The Life of St. Francis. He also assisted at the translation of the relics of St. Anthony of Padua.

[10] St. Peter Chrysologus: 380-450. Italian Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Called "Chrysologus" (golden-worded) because of his exceptional oratorical eloquence. In 1729, he was made a Doctor of the Church, largely as a result of his simple, practical, and clear sermons  nearly all dealing with Gospel subjects.

[11] St Anselm of Canterbury1033/4–1109), also called Anselm of Aosta after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian, archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109

[12] St Antoninus: Archbishop of Florence,1389-1459; principal works are his Summa moralis and Summa confessionum.

[13] St. Basil the Great: 330-379. One of ten children of St. Basil the Elder and St. Emmelia. A man of vast learning, and eloquence.A giant of the early Church.

[14] Ludolph of Saxony: 1295 – 1378; German Roman Catholic theologian of the fourteenth century. His principal work, first printed in the 1470s, was the Vita Christi (Life of Christ).

[15] [14] For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come.
Non enim habemus hic manentem civitatem, sed futuram inquirimus. [Hebrews 13]

[16] Blessed Veronica of Milan (c. 1445 – 13 January 1497) was an Italian nun in the Augustinian Order. She was reputed to have received frequent visions of the Virgin Mary, and her local cultus was confirmed by Pope Leo X in 1517.

Totus tuus ego sum 
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum tutus semper sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam