Mary, Mother of God

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Seven Sorrows, Seven Joys
Sonnets in Meditation on Mary’s Life
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Art and Spirituality is a series of brief monographs published by The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute.

Its purpose is to promote personal meditation. In general, each issue is based on a focal image of religious character, preferably with a Marian theme.
Seven Sorrows, Seven joys: Sonnets in Meditation on Mary’s Life departs from this schema but pursues the same goal. In this second issue of Art and Spirituality both word and image are vehicles of meditation. They both illustrate the meaning of pondering, which is a spiritual form of moving the cradle to and fro. God’s own Word is cradled in the heart of the believer. It begs to be rocked and rolled and cuddled to reveal its secrets and disclose the depth of its love. This is what artist and poet set out to achieve in this booklet. They represent two different voices singing the same tune, Mary’s life. Following in the footsteps of Mary of Nazareth, the poet tries to intuit and recreate in sonnets filled with noble empathy the seven sorrows and seven joys of her pilgrimage of faith. The artist captures and frames the wealth of poetic imagery in weightless drawings, beckoning the reader to enter the mysteries of Mary. Though differing in artistic expression, the two artist-sisters are of one heart as they tell us: “Mary’s human discipleship becomes ours, and ours becomes hers.”

This booklet owes its existence to a God-human interest story. The story is about God, two sisters, call and response. God manifests his presence in one sister (the poet) as call, and in the other sister (the artist) as response. The result is a beautiful conversion story; pointing once more to the manifold ways of God’s coming among us, ink drawings and sonnets included.
Johann G. Roten, S.M.

Audacious angel! How do you dare
to enter here without a knock, without
a warning whir of wings, without a sound
to signal, softly, somebody about?
This is a maiden’s chamber after all.
Are you, a seraph, shadowless? Or could
you not have altered light and air to let
her untouched heart beware? Can this be good
to break into a space of grace? intrude
so suddenly, with prophecy, on her
when her reserve, her insularity
is winter-warm and passionate and pure?
Perhaps you knew she’d answer bold and free:
“I am a virgin, Sir. How can this be?”

Elizabeth, were you expecting her
to stand so bright, sun-circled, on the step?
Were you prepared by prophecy for that
great joy, the word at which the Baptist leapt?
Did you anticipate her haste? Were you
half-listening to hear her sweep the stone
with her quick steps? To hear her hail you, call
your name, magnificat in every tone?
Or did surprise surge up, a buoyancy,
elation like a bubble rainbow-run
that’s spun with air in darkness, in the deepest
depth of soul, and surfaces in sun?
So jubilant was your humility:
“The Mother of my Lord has come-to me!”

Joseph-what could she tell him? How explain
the body budding in her flesh, the child
he knew was not his own? He stared at her.
His fingers formed a fist, and something wild
took hold of him and seized upon his soul.
He struggled for control; he looked and left
and Mary lingered at the door; a weight
below her waist and on her heart, bereft
of all support but God’s. What could she do
but trust in Him to be her Advocate?
Inviolate, a virgin still her Son
all Spirit-sprung, what could she do but wait
for Him to send an angel in the night,
while Joseph slept, and set his thoughts aright?

Angelic odyssey! That fabled flight
across a universe expanding, star
by star, through jeweled space and shining night,
from Heaven’s height to hills of Bethlehem,
where angels mounted moon-lit on the air
and met to form a constellation new,
a crown of light, resplendent, rich and rare,
suspended high above the lifted heads
of shepherds startled into fear and awe,
who trembled at the tidings that they heard
and marvelled at the symmetry they saw:
a diadem for David in the sky,
a vision pointing to a greater sign:
the Virgin Mother with her Child Divine.

Old Simeon! What drew you there that day?
What whisper wakened longing in your soul?
What impulse roused you, gave new life to your
unsteady limbs? And what imagined goal,
what sweet desired dream could seem within
the grasp of gnarled hands and ancient arms
like yours? What vision or what unheard voice
impelled your coming? Haste like this alarms
and certainty in seers like you is hard
to beat: This energy, this seizing Him,
this speaking of His destiny, this fit
of flowing tears in eyes both bright and dim-
it all electrified. The crowd was stirred.
And Mary listened, and her whole heart heard!

Must you awaken Mary now, at night,
when she is deep in dreams and her small Son
asleep beside her? Must you disturb
so sweet a slumber? Breathing two as one,
her slender arm, still soft with sleep, is wrapped
about the babe, and his dark hair is damp
against her skin. Must innocence like this
be ended? Must you shine the warning lamp
across her gentle face? If Herod’s set
upon the infant’s death, then she must know,
take flight for Egypt, exile, yet tonight-
May she find strength to act and pack and go-
to calm her baby, keep her own heart still,
and hear the wasteland whisper of God’s will-

Can this extraordinary etiquette
be God’s? To grieve you, leave you, stay behind
without a word to ease your mind, to let
you know where He would be? Can this be kind?
Or does some strange uncommon courtesy
direct this deed that leads you to the throne
of God? Jesus teaching in the Temple!
Such firmness, self-assurance in His tone
as if He’d known, anticipated all
anxiety, and planned your pain to spare
you worse! What could you do, endure, or dare,
what burden bear, if He did not prepare
you through this separation, triple loss,
these three sad days foreshadowing the cross?

It was a sacrifice for you to speak
that wedding-word that welcomed miracle.
It ended silence, privacy, the spell
of years when everything empirical
was divinized by Him, His hand, His look-
the quiet years at Nazareth when He,
True God, reserved for you His company-
all ended at that feast in Galilee
when wine ran out, and cups were drained and stained,
and you, concerned, told Him, “They have no more.”
He knew what you implied, and He turned stern
to test the depth of your request, explore
your readiness to co-redeem, to fast,
abstain, bear pain-and keep the best for last-

She stood when other women would have dropped
and fallen down and clawed the quaking ground.
She stood and shared His silence when the wails
of weeping women bound the air with sound
and held it heavy, every breath a blow,
their keening shrill like wind that rips the rain
and blasts the birches back and black. She stood-
and no one else could have withstood the pain
she felt with every welt, with every strike
and stripe and burst of blood, with every moan.
She stood where Christ could see her constancy,
be comforted that He was not alone.
Compassionate, she watched Him writhe and rise,
a crucifixion in her steady eyes.

O Michelangelo! Why did you carve
such calm in her and leave her cheek so smooth?
Is she unaging then? Have grief and time
no power to affect her flesh, to prove
her old? The fold of stone reveals her youth-
the untouched brow, the slender, open hand,
the firm light fingers, sheltering and still,
and on her lap the body of a man
who’s caught in all the silence of the stone-
her Son, her Savior, and her God in stark
repose, unclothed, and wrung into His rest.
Her countenance contemplative to mark
His wounds, this marble Mary moves to tears
for sorrow undiminished by the years.

O you Evangelists! Why do you not
agree in your accounts? Was something lost
when John, in haste, went running to the tomb?
Or were emotions mixed, and hearts so tossed
with grief and joy unspeakable, with fear
and love and inexplicable belief
that all the Gospels babble when they tell
of the rock rolled back, and light, and your relief

to see Him risen through the tears? And why
is nothing written of the woman who
was standing there beneath the cross? Did He
not go and show Himself to Mary too?
Or did she keep her secret all too well-
the Christ-encounter none but she could tell?

The song that fire sang, the roar of tongues
air-borne above your heads, light-licking, loud,
in every language uttered, understood,
spoke to you, through you, summoned, hushed, and bowed
the crowd that gathered in the streets to hear
salvific news. And Mary-in-your-midst
stood there, transfigured, full of awe and joy
for He, the Paraclete, could not resist
consoling sorrow such as hers, so pure
that all she longed for was God’s Will fulfilled.
He penetrated breath and blood and bone,
and at His coming all her being thrilled-
for once the shadow of God’s power fell
across her flesh and left her in His spell!

O Luke, how I could envy you! to hear
from her own lips the story of our Lord,
have her unfold the heart-stored memories
of infancy and youth, and to record
those recollections, rare, retold, relived
with every word. How did she speak to you?
With reverence, with pause of awe, with warmth
and quiet wondering to look anew
at scenes all feeling-framed and yet untouched,
like water colors mixed unmuddied, clear
and fresh, with power to present the past,
eternalize, and draw the distant near-
what joy to hear her! From the very start
she kept God’s treasure in her trembling heart!

How did she come to Heaven? Was she borne
by angel-arms that lifted her as light
as feather-down? Or did our Lord Himself
come cradle her and carry her from sight?
Or did some sweet and solemn ecstasy
of longing liberate her from the earth
that she departed, not in death, but in
a dream, a grasping for the pearl of worth,
a leap after her love? For only lilies
filled her tomb, and the mysterious scent
of sunbeams on the blossoms served to ease
the heart of John when Mary rose and went
to meet her Son in glory, reunite
with God Incarnate, longing joined with Light.

:54:43 EDT by Varun Gade. Please send any comments to Johann.Roten@udayton.edu.
URL for this page is http://www.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/sevensorrows1.html

Amen.