Our Lady of Sorrows in the Joyful Mysteries
I often pray the joyful mysteries of the rosary and the chaplet of Our Lady of Sorrows together, contemplating how Mary’s joys embrace her sorrows. Today’s feast falls this year just before Passion Sunday; in some years it falls on Good Friday! Given this seasonal conjunction between the incarnation of Christ and the approach of His passion and death, I want to reflect on the joyful mysteries of the rosary through works of sacred art, paying attention to the ways artists throughout the centuries have symbolically foreshadowed the Cross in their depictions of the infancy and childhood of Jesus. We will see how Mary’s acceptance of the Word of the Lord was from the beginning an acceptance of the way of the Cross, and a special share in Jesus’ saving Passion.
We are all familiar with the joyful mysteries of the holy rosary: the Annunciation (today’s feast); the Visitation; the Nativity; the Presentation of Jesus; and the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. In praying these and all the mysteries of the rosary we meditate on the Gospel of our salvation through the eyes and heart of Mary, the Mother of God.
The heart of Mary which is pierced by seven swords. The Sorrows of the Blessed Mother portrayed in the picture below are: the prophesy of Simeon; the flight into Egypt; the losing of the Child Jesus; the meeting on the way of the Cross; the Crucifixion; the deposition; and the burial of Jesus.
So much wisdom from our Catholic tradition is embodied in sacred art! Great religious artworks are not only edifying and pious illustrations of scripture and theology, they are sacramentals that in their own way make the Word become flesh, so that we can see with our eyes and even kiss with our lips images of the ineffable beauty of God who for love of us become man in the womb of the Virgin.
Lorenzo Lotto, Madonna of the Rosary, 1539, Church of San Nicolo, Cingoli
Adriaen Isenbrandt, Seven Sorrows of Mary, 1520, oil on panel, Church of Our Lady, Bruges
The Annunciation Lk 1:26-38
Fra Angelico, Annunciation, c. 1426, tempera on panel, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
This Annunciation by Blessed Fra Angelico is one version of the artist monk’s representations of this scene of grace. Here we see on the left side a portrayal of Adam and Eve evicted in the garden of Eden, and on the right, the Blessed Virgin Mary receiving the Incarnation of Jesus. A diagonal ray of light with the Holy Spirit portrayed as a dove suspended upon it commences from the hands of God the Father like the sun over the garden of Eden and moves towards the heart of the Virgin where she dwells within an enclosure approached by the Archangel Gabriel.
Have you ever wondered why so many paintings of the Annunciation and of the Madonna are set in a garden or an enclosure within a garden? This is a trope (a visual metaphor) referred to as Hortus Conclusus which is Latin for an enclosed garden. It comes from the Song of Songs in the Latin translation: “hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa hortus conclusus fons signatus” (4:12): “A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed” (ESV). The Song of Songs is understood in Catholic tradition to be a love song describing three mystical relationships: the relation between Christ and the Church; between Christ and the soul; and specifically, between Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
(Gregory the Great’s Commentary on the Song of Songs, https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_song1_tanner.html#22)
In Christian art from the Middle Ages onwards we see this trope as representing Mary. Mary is the enclosed garden because of 1) her perpetual virginity, and because 2) in her womb the new Adam is formed, restoring the relationship between God and humankind that was broken by the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. In this way Mary’s womb is the new garden of Eden in which God is reunited with man in the most radical way! Here the process of total reconciliation between God and man, embodied in Jesus Christ - true man and true God - and consummated on the Cross is begun (2 Cor 5:21).
(The Homily of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, concerning the Holy Mother of God, ever-virgin. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/gregory_thaumaturgus_homily.htm)
So we see the dramatic moment when Mary gave her ‘yes,’ her fiat in the annunciation, portrayed in a garden. We have so far considered two connotations of the garden: the garden of Eden and the ‘enclosed garden’ of Mary’s womb/heart. However, the connotations of the garden are not exhausted by these two interpretations. We are reminded of another two prominent gardens in Scripture. The next is the garden of Gethsemane.
Sandro Botticelli, Agony in the Garden, c. 1500, tempera on panel, Muso de la Capilla Real, Granada
Let us keep vigil here with Jesus for a moment. Gethsemane is where Jesus gave His ‘yes’ to the suffering He was about to undergo in these words: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Mt 26:39 ESV). Although Mary could not have had the foresight that her Son possessed in His surrender to God the Father’s will, at the Annunciation she was nonetheless ‘greatly troubled’, and she would have reasonably anticipated suffering as a consequence of becoming pregnant before she lived with her betrothed. As Doctor of the Church, Saint Peter Chrysologus reflects: “her bosom was disturbed, her mind recoiled, and her whole state became one of trembling when God, whom the whole of creation does not contain, placed his whole self inside her bosom and made himself a man” (Sermon 140). Nonetheless we read: “And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’” (Lk 1:38 ESV).
Both Mary’s ‘yes’ and Jesus’s ‘yes’ were made in trust of God’s providence and surrender of their whole selves - giving their very bodies up for God’s mysterious use and plan.
The next garden is, of course, the garden of the Tomb - the Holy Sepulcher.
Rogier van der Weyden, Entombment of Christ, c. 1460-1463, oil on panel, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The descent of God the Creator of the universe into the womb of His creature before being birthed into the world as a fragile mortal baby, was a humiliation beyond our wildest imagination. It was a radical stripping. As Saint Paul writes: Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8 ESV). In a way, Jesus’s incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary is analogous to His entombment: in the womb His body was hidden before He was birthed into our world; in the tomb His body was also hidden before His Resurrection in His newly glorified body.
George Hitchcock, The Annunciation, 1887, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago
Orthodox Christian hymns pick up on this symbolic parallelism. A fragment of a medieval hymn extols the Virgin in these surprising terms:
“Oh Mary, closed garden
And little casket from the garden,
From which a flower [Christ] grew for us,
whom you cared for diligently,
And who, when he was tormented on the cross,
Absolved all wrongdoing.”
(Hymnus 50. AHMA, 6, 161)
(https://provincedesienne.com/2019/05/06/matteo-di-giovanni-pala-di-san-pietro-a-ovile/)
The Visitation Lk 1:39-56
Melchior Broederlam, exterior panels for the Crucifixion Altarpiece for the Chartreuse de Champmol, 1398, tempera on wood, Musée des Beaux Arts, Dijon
Now let us look at the next joyful mystery: the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. Here we see twin panels of an altarpiece portraying on the left side the Annunciation and the Visitation, and on the right side the Presentation of Jesus in the temple and the flight of the holy family into Egypt. There is a strong visual contrast between the compact architectural spaces of the home and temple and the brown mountainous wilderness where the artist locates both the Visitation and the Flight into Egypt. In both panels we move visually from the place of order (agreement and law) to the place of implied arduous ascent, with a remote city visible in the highest distance.
About the visitation we read that “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah” (Lk 1:39 ESV). Mary went on this approximately 100-mile/4-day journey to assist her cousin Elizabeth who was further advanced in her miraculous pregnancy than Mary was. (https://www.logos.com/grow/explore-the-life-of-mary-this-advent-season/) This was an act of charity, done without delay, even given the extraordinary circumstances of her own pregnancy. So, metaphorically, we can see the ‘hill country’ around Judah represented in this painting as the steep path of virtue which the holy soul climbs through concrete acts of charity to arrive at the celestial Jerusalem represented by the elevated city in the distance. The juxtaposition of this scene with the flight into Egypt further draws our attention to the difficulty of Mary’s later journey also made in haste in order to save the life of her Son from the murderous and jealous King Herod.
There is yet another symbolic parallel to be drawn out between these two journeys. In the flight into Egypt the holy family is sojourning from the promised land to the land where their people were enslaved before the exodus: from the new to the old. Similarly, in Mary’s journey to Elizabeth we see two layers of the movement from the new to the old: Mary the young virgin mother to Elisabeth the old wife past natural child-bearing years, and of Jesus Christ, the New Covenant, to John the Baptist, the last prophet of the Old Covenant (Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Homily 6, 69).
We begin to see how sacred art can be layered with symbolic meaning, so that simultaneous themes and narratives of salvation history are alluded to through imagery. Just as the Holy Sacrifice of Mass makes present different moments of our salvation in Christ, so we can reflect on these specific moments through the lens of God’s trans-temporal eternity in sacred art.
The Nativity Lk 2:1-7
Georges de La Tour, The Newborn Child, c. 1645–1648, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes
We come now to the Nativity of Jesus. In The Newborn Child Baroque painter Georges de La Tour portrays the infant Jesus almost as the very source of light. Notice how it is Saint Joseph’s hand that covers/protects the flame of a candle over the sleeping child’s head? Jesus is the true light that was to come into the world and Saint Joseph is His protector (Jn 1:9). While there are many other compelling visual elements of this painting deserving of reflection, what I want to draw especial attention to is another visual trope that is repeated in sacred art throughout the centuries, namely how the swaddling clothes of the sleeping infant foreshadow His burial shroud. This is no accidental resemblance. In Orthodox iconography of the Nativity of Jesus this foreshadowing is even more explicit.
Nativity of Christ miniature in the Menologion of Basil II, c. 1000, The Vatican Library
Explaining the traditional iconography of the Nativity, Orthodox Priest, Father Jeremy McKemy writes:
In the center is the infant Christ lying in a manger. The Virgin Mary (Theotokos) is beside Him, and an ox and an ass are behind Him. Christ being born in a cave is not in the Bible, but it is an ancient tradition, dating back to the first and second centuries. He is dressed in burial clothes to foreshadow His death. His location in a cave also foreshadows the grave in which He would be buried and where He would resurrect.
Father Jeremy goes on to describe how the cave where Christ is born is also like the human heart:
Caves, with all of their mystery and darkness, hidden chambers and secret places, are truly a reflection of the dark, mysterious heart within each one of us. But like the cave Christ entered on Christmas day, our hearts can become the dwelling place of His majestic glory. Like the ox and ass [clean and unclean animals according to Jewish law] we have both clean and unclean things in our hearts – the things that are good and not so good. We have the devil whispering doubts or evil things to us. But we also have the Theotokos praying for us. (https://www.orthodoxroad.com/nativity-icon-explained/)
The Church teaches that the Mother of God did not suffer the natural labor pains of birth, not being subject to original sin. However, as mother of us all, she suffers a mother’s labor pains until the end of time as she intercedes for her Son Jesus Christ to be born in the hearts of men and women everywhere. (Catechism of the Council of Trent https://www.saintsbooks.net/books/The%20Roman%20Catechism.pdf)
Another way that the Crucifixion of Jesus is visually foreshadowed in His infancy is shown here in Piero della Francesca’s painting of the Madonna surrounded by saints.
Piero della Francesca, Brera Madonna, 1472, tempera on panel, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
In in this painting Jesus’s seeping body is reclined upon the thrown of His mother’s tranquil lap, just like He appears in paintings of the Pietà - images of Mary holding her Son’s Crucified body after it is taken down from the Cross.
Here the sleeping Jesus is not swaddled but naked, like when He was crucified, upon His mother’s lap, with a necklace of red coral (which was used for teething infants) hanging so that it falls just like red drops of blood from his side, while his right hand indicates that same place where the lance will pierce him after His death on the Cross. Notice how this theme is reinforced by the image of Saint Francis immediately to the left of the Virgin in the foreground: he opens his habit to reveal the wound in his side - his stigmata of the wound of Christ.
Thus, paintings in the east and the west symbolically portray the Mother of God simultaneously adoring her Son’s miraculous birth and mourning His death. Now look closely at the face of Mary. Did you notice the similarity in all three representations of the Virgin Mother? Is she not uncannily still? See how her lids are slightly closed, veiling her gaze? As an artist I might well ask: how can one portray a pure soul in ecstatic joy and adoration of the God-man birthed from her own flesh? How can any artist portray Mary’s sorrow which encompasses and exceeds every mother’s sorrow at the suffering and death of her child? These are mysteries of Mary’s heart - the greatest joy knows the greatest sorrow - that Piero della Francesca, Georges de la Tour and other artists have often represented in what I consider to be the most honest way - showing us Mary’s devotion to her Son and Adoration of His Divinity in her body’s gesture, while her gaze appears inward, wrapped in stillness and silence which reveal a ‘peace that surpasses all understanding’ and an impenetrable, a secret, depth wherein all the extremes of human emotion are reconciled in faith (Phil 4:6). Her countenance communicates her interiority and peaceful surrender to God’s Divine Providence in the face of joy and sorrow, life and death. They show us how the Blessed Virgin Mary ‘pondered all these things in her heart’ (Lk 2:19).
The Presentation in the Temple Lk 2:22-35
Unknown Master of the Life of the Virgin, The Presentation in the Temple, c. 1460-1475, oil on panel, the National Gallery, London
We have come to the joyful mystery of the rosary that is also one of the traditional seven sorrows of Mary: the Presentation in the Temple and the Prophesy of Simeon.
The Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple is also the purification of the Virgin Mary: according to Mosaic Law, a new mother remained unclean for 40 days after birth and had to make a sacrificial offering in the Temple to be cleansed (Leviticus 12). Additionally, each first-born male child was to be consecrated to the Lord and a redemption sacrifice had to be offered for him (Numbers 18, Exodus 13:1-2, 13-16). This sacrifice was the means by which the Jewish people could be reconciled to God in spite of their personal and inherited sin. In this extraordinary moment, the true sacrificial lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29) is made subject to the lesser sacrifice - that of the Law - that He will fulfill in His Sacrifice on the Cross.
The power of this moment is made evident by the artist who designed this painting. Jesus is given to Simeon who is dressed as a Catholic priest at an altar that shows different scenes from the Old Testament as if carved in marble: the sacrifices of Cain and Abel on the left; the sacrifice of Isaac in the center; and the drunkenness of Noah with his sons on the right. The first two are clear prefigurements of the true sacrifice of Jesus, but the last begs some explanation. Saint John Chrysostom comments on Noah’s drunkenness and his two faithful sons’ response in hiding their gazes from his abjection: “Let us imitate, on the contrary, the honesty and modesty of the sons who covered the nakedness of their father; let us do the same, let us cover up the faults of our brethren…” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis, PG 53 Hom. 29:4). In light of this moral lesson, we can clearly see how Jesus Christ indeed covers the nakedness and faults of others, including his fathers according to the flesh through Mary’s ancestry.
Luis de Morales, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, c. 1562, oil on panel. Museo del Prado, Madrid
Similarly, the painting of the Presentation by Luis de Morales shows vividly how the body of the infant Jesus is being offered by the Priest Simeon as if on a contemporary Catholic altar - thus enacting even in His infancy His sacrifice on the Cross which will be re-presented in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
We come at last to the prophesy of Simeon to Mary: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35 ESV).
What is the sign that is opposed? It is the Cross. When was Mary’s heart pierced? Ultimately, when her Son dies on the Cross and His Sacred heart is pierced by a lance. As Mary consecrates her Son in the Temple, willingly giving her Child conceived by the Holy Spirit back to God the Father, she in a way ‘rehearses’ the ultimate offering that she will be called to make at the foot of the Cross as she gives her Son back to God the Father again.
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple Lk 2:41-52
Samuel Massé, Jesus Found in the Temple, c. 1720, oil on canvas, Church of Saint Anthony of Padua
The fifth joyful mystery, the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, like the Presentation, is both joy and sorrow to Mary. Joy in finding, sorrow in searching in anxiety for her missing Son. After their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover Mary and Joseph realized that Jesus was not with them, and after searching for him in the city for three days they finally found Him in the Temple. That Jesus was missing for three days foreshadows how He, the new Passover lamb, will be sacrificed and then hidden for three days before His glorious Resurrection. In Massé’s painting the child Jesus is looking at His mother and pointing up, directing her attention to God the Father, to His Divine will, perhaps even to the ultimate triumph of His Resurrection and Ascension. He indicates where He is from and where He must go, and thus how Mary must let Him go at the time appointed.
Theologian Romano Guardini’ reflects that it is:
“When [Mary’s] twelve-year-old son remains behind in the temple, to be found after an agony of seeking—that the divine 'otherness' of that which stands at the center of her existence is revealed (Luke 2:41-So). To the certainly understandable reproach: ‘Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold, in sorrow thy father and I have been seeking thee,’ the boy replies, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?’ In that hour Mary must have begun to comprehend Simeon's prophecy: ‘And thy own soul a sword shall pierce’ (Luke 2:35). For what but the sword of God can it mean when a child in such a moment answers his disturbed mother with an amazed: ‘How is it that you sought me?’ We are not surprised to read further down the page: ‘And they did not understand the word that he spoke to them.’ Then directly: ‘And his mother kept all these things carefully in her heart.’ Not understanding, she buries the words like precious seed within her. The incident is typical: the mother's vision is unequal to that of her son, but her heart, like chosen ground, is deep enough to sustain the highest tree.” (Our Lord, “The Mother”)
Truly Mary’s heart which knows the depths of joy and suffering is a safe refuge for us. We long to be known and to be held by such a mother. It is my prayer that this ‘visual rosary’ has been an aid to your devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and that by contemplating her joys and her sorrows we may more confidently entrust our own joys and sorrows to her all-compassionate maternal heart. Let us ask her for her strength to carry our crosses and for her compassion in accompanying others in their trials.
A painting depicting the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Peterskirche, Vienna, Austria
I hope that you can be inspired to use sacred art in the following ways:
1) As an aid to certain prayers: to help you imagine each mystery of the rosary or moment in salvation history or the lives of the Saints
2) As a kind of visual theological essay: that spending time with holy images you can discover and reflect on their many layers of symbolic meaning
3) As, with certain holy icons, windows into heaven through which to venerate and pray with the Saints
Now let us put into practice the recollection of the joyful mysteries of the rosary with the aid of sacred art. Let us ask Our Lady of Sorrows to pray with us and for us and to teach us more wisdom from her immaculate heart.