The Middle Ages were marked by a profound love of the Blessed Virgin Mary by all Christians in both Eastern and Western churches. Mary was loving and lovable, a human figure more approachable than her Son, Jesus Christ, who was both God and man. The place of the Stabat Mater in Catholic devotion cannot be understood without appreciating this.
One expression of devotion to the Virgin was the rosary, developed in the Middle Ages as a parallel to singing the psalms. While monks and canons sang the 150 psalms in the weekly course of liturgical prayer, the unlettered prayed the Ave Maria 150 times. The rosary was designed as a meditation on the mysteries of salvation during the praying of the Ave Maria. But the rosary described the mysteries of salvation as events in the life of the Blessed Virgin. The Incarnation—the Son of God taking on human nature—was perceived as the annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary that she would conceive a Son. The Ascension of Christ was followed by Mary’s Assumption into heaven and her crowning as Queen.
Similarly, along with the liturgical celebration of Good Friday, which focused on the Passion and Death of Christ, popular devotion was expressed by singing Mary’s lament on His death, the Planctus ante nescia. Much later, the feast of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin was kept on different days in many dioceses as a local observance.
In 1727, it was made the feast of the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin, observed on the Friday before Palm Sunday, exactly a week before Good Friday. In 1817 a second observance of the feast was fixed on September 15. |
|
|
|