Feasts of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
There are two such days:
- Friday before Palm Sunday, major double;
- third Sunday in September double of the second class.
The object of these feats is the spiritual martyrdom of the Mother of God and
her compassion with the sufferings of her Divine Son.
(1) The seven founders of the Servite Order, in 1239, five years after they
established themselves on Monte Senario, took up the sorrows of Mary, standing
under the Cross, as the principal devotion of their order. The corresponding
feast, however, did not originate with them; its celebration was enacted by a
provincial synod of Cologne (1413) to expiate the crimes of the iconoclast
Hussites; it was to be kept on the Friday after the third Sunday after Easter
under the title: "Commemoratio angustix et doloris B. Marix V.". Its
object was exclusively the sorrow of Mary during the Crucifixion and Death of
Christ. Before the sixteenth century this feast was limited to the dioceses of
North Germany, Scandinavia, and Scotland. Being termed "Compassio" or
"Transfixio", Commendatio, Lamentatio B.M.V.", it was kept at a
great variety of dates, mostly during Eastertide or shortly after Pentacost, or
on some fixed day of a month (18 July, Merseburg; 19 July, Halberstadt, Lxbeck,
Meissen; 20 July, Naumberg; cf. Grotefend, "Zeitrechnung", II, 2,
166). Dreves and Blume (Analecta hymnica) have published a large number of
rhythmical offices, sequences and hymns for the feast of the Compassion, which
show that from the end of the fifteenth century in several dioceses the scope of
this feast was widened to commemorate either five dolours, from the imprisonment
to the burial of Christ, or seven dolours, extending over the entire life of
Mary (cf. XXIV, 122-53; VIII, 51 sq.; X, 79 sq., etc.). Towards the end of the
end of the sixteenth century the feast spread over part of the south of Europe;
in 1506 it was granted to the nuns of the Annunciation under the title "Spasmi
B.M.V.", Monday after Passion Sunday; in 1600 to the Servite nuns of
Valencia, "B.M.V. sub pede Crucis", Friday before Palm Sunday. After
1600 it became popular in France and was termed "Dominx N. de Pietate",
Friday before Palm Sunday. To this latter date the feast was assigned for the
whole German Empire (1674). By a Decree of 22 April 1727, Benedict XIII extended
it to the entire Latin Church, under the title "Septem dolorum B.M.V.",
although the Office and Mass retain the original character of the feast, the
Compassion of Mary at the foot of the Cross. At both Mass and Office the "Stabat
Mater" of Giacopone da Todi (1306) is sung.
(2) The second feast was grated to the Servites, 9 June and 15 September,
1668, double with an octave for the third Sunday in September. Its object of the
seven dolours of Mary (according to the responsories of Matins: the sorrow
- at the prophecy of Simeon;
- at the flight into Egypt;
- having lost the Holy Child at Jerusalem;
- meeting Jesus on
his way to Calvary;
- standing at the foot of the Cross;
- Jesus being taken
from the Cross;
- at the burial of Christ.
This feast was extended to Spain (1735); to Tuscany (double of the second
class with an octave, 1807). After his return from his exile in France Pius
VII extended the feast to the Latin Church (18 September, 1814), major
double); it was raised to the rank of a double of the second class, 13 May,
1908. The Servites celebrate it as a double of the first class with an octave
and a vigil. Also in the Passionate Order, at Florence and Granada (N.S. de las
Angustias), its rank is double of the first class with an octave. The hymns
which are now used in the Office of this feast were probably composed by the
Servite Callisto Palumbella (eighteenth century). On the devotion, cf. Kellner,
"Heortology", p. 271. The old title of the "Compassio" is
preserved by the Diocese of Hildesheim in a simple feast, Saturday after the
octave of Corpus Christi. A feast, "B.M.V. de pietate", with a
beautiful medieval office, is kept in honour of the sorrowful mother at Goa in
India and Braga in Portugal, on the third Sunday of October; in the
ecclesiastical province of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, last Sunday of May, etc.
(cf. the corresponding calendars). A special form of devotion is practised in
Spanish-speaking countries under the term of "N.S. de la Soledad", to
commemorate the solitude of Mary on Holy Saturday. Its origin goes back to Queen
Juana, lamenting the early death of her husband Philip I, King of Spain (1506).
To the oriental churches these feasts are unknown; the Catholic Ruthenians
keep a feast of the sorrowful Mother on Friday after the octave of Corpus
Christi.
F.G. HOLWECK
Transcribed by Christine J. Murray
Dedicated to Fr. Charles M. Mangan
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV
Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
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