March 24: The Mother of Christ Mourns: The Sword of Grief
♫ Music:
Title: The Mother of Christ Mourns: The Sword of Grief
Scripture #1: Luke 2:34–35 (NKJV)
Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Scripture #2: Zechariah 12:10 (NKJV)
“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”
Poetry & Poet:
“Pieta”
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Fills now my cup, and past thought is
my fulness thereof. I harden as a stone
sets hard at its heart.
Hard that I am, I know this alone:
that thou didst grow—
— — — — — and grow,
to outgrow,
as too great pain,
my heart’s reach utterly.
Now liest thou my womb athwart,
now can I not to thee again
give birth.
THE MOTHER OF CHRIST MOURNS: THE SWORD OF GRIEF
These three pietàs by maestro Michelangelo and the haunting Stabat Mater of 89-year-old Estonian composer Arvo Pärt move us into a contemplative space where words fall far below… and fail.
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The first time I saw the so-called Bandini Pietà (Deposition) at Museo del Opera del Duomo in Florence, I was thunderstruck. How could any human being master stone carving so completely that inanimate rock itself breathes? My reaction reminded me of the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, where the sculptor enters forbidden territory––praying to the gods that his perfect woman (carved from marble) would come to life. In the myth she awakens and breathes but spurns the artist’s adoration and wants nothing to do with him. A devastating consequence of artistic hubris and ungodly ambition.
Michelangelo––named for the archangel Michael––was indeed bordering on the forbidden in this series of nearly miraculous works of art. In the earliest and most famous Pietà carved when he was in his 20’s and living in Rome, the young master carver shows his preternatural capacity for bringing stone to life (and death). Every muscle and sinew vibrant and astonishingly real––both Mother and Son. Jesus’s lifeless body stretched across her lap seems still-warm as though freshly taken down from the cross. Her perpetual virginity (a doctrine of the Roman Church) is figured in her youthful form, but the real thought here is figlia del tuo Figlio––in Italian: daughter of your Son. The mystery that Christ’s mother gave birth to her own creator and God. This is (or should be) still a scandal. The Incarnation is a much wilder theological reality than the Resurrection! The infinite Creator comes to be born, willingly made helpless and dependent upon a fourteen-year-old single human mother.
The Rondanini Pietà—the fruit of the aged Michelangelo and one of his last works also breathes––but the intake of breath seems shallower and the exhalation final. The lack of resolution to the form ought to be set alongside the magisterial pietà from the artist’s early days. Why are the Bandini and the Rondanini partly unresolved? Is it simply that the sculptor never finished them? I think not. They harken back to his earlier captive slave series that all seem intentionally unfinished––bustling with vitality and revealing the hammer blows of the artist. And it is in that very “unfinished” state that these works seem to come to life. Process is everything––and the marks of the chisel are no longer disguised in high polish. The artist seems to say, “This form has made its entry into the world. I can no longer fuss over it but must step aside and let it be.”
And perhaps that is what is most memorable and remarkable in the mature Michelangelo––his growing humility. The late letters of the master are full of repentance, sorrow at his early arrogance and pridefulness, and his deepening devotion to Christ, his Lord. His late poetry focuses on God’s glory, not his own.
Isn’t that the arc of all our lives? The older we get the more aware we are of our finitude and our falsities––and our need for redemption. As T. S. Eliot says in Four Quartets (from the final stanza of second of the four poems, “East Coker”):
Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
In His end, our Lord’s life passed into us. In His end was our beginning of new and eternal life. As we mourn on Maundy Thursday, we stay close to our suffering savior—prophesied by Isaiah four hundred years before. Stay with Christ. Let go of the form that has come into being, put down your hammer and chisel and look long with unguarded gaze at true Love.
Bruce Herman, M.F.A.
Artist, Writer, Curator, and Educator
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork #1:
Pietà
Michelangelo Buonarroti
1498–1499
Carrara marble
174 x 195 cm
Saint Peter’s Basilica
Vatican City, Italy
The word “pietà,” meaning pity or compassion, is the term that is used in biblical art to describe the scene of Mary holding her dead son, Jesus, on her lap subsequent to His crucifixion. Michaelangelo carved three different pietàs in his lifetime. This is Michelangelo's first pietà and is the one that is most recognizable of the three. The statue was originally commissioned by a French cardinal, Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas, then the French ambassador in Rome. The sculpture was made, probably as an altarpiece, for the cardinal's funeral chapel in the Old St. Peter's Basilica before its replacement by the current St. Peter’s Basilica. The Pietà, made from Carrara marble, is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture and marks the beginning of the High Renaissance. Michelangelo's aesthetic interpretation of the Pietà is unprecedented in Italian sculpture because it balances early forms of naturalism with the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty. While sculpted in the classic Greek style, a close examination of the figures reveals that the proportion of the figures relative to each other is not natural. Mary's body is significantly larger than that of her adult son, and if both were standing, she would tower over him. This is evident in the width of her shoulders and chest and the size of her legs and lap. Michelangelo incorporated extensive draping of the fabric to facilitate the illusion. The sculptor also represented Mary as a very young woman, perhaps to represent her ageless purity and to reflect her internal beauty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo)#:~:text=The%20Piet%C3%A0%20
https://www.theflorentine.net/2022/02/23/michelangelo-three-pietas-museum-duomo-florence/
https://www.indulgewithildi.com/post/michelangelo-and-his-3-piet%C3%A0s-or-are-they
About the Artwork #2:
The Deposition (The Bandini Pietà)
Michelangelo Buonarroti
1547–1555
Marble
277 cm
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
Florence, Italy
The Deposition or The Bandini Pietà is the second pietà marble sculpture by Michelangelo. The sculptural group depicts four figures: the body of Jesus Christ, newly taken down from the cross; Nicodemus (or possibly Joseph of Arimathea); Mary Magdalene; and Jesus' mother, Mary. According to Italian artist and historian Vasari (1511–1574), Michelangelo originally made the sculpture to decorate his own tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. He later sold it, however, before completion after, in a fit of frustration, intentionally damaging Christ's left arm and leg. Some experts believe it was because the marble was flawed and the sculpture could not be completed without the addition of a piece of marble from another block. This marked the end of Michelangelo's work on the sculptural group, which found itself in the hands of the Archbishop of Siena, Francesco Bandini, who hired an apprentice sculptor named Tiberio Calcagni to restore the work to its current composition. Since its inception, the sculpture has been plagued by never-ending interpretations and speculations. The face of Nicodemus under the hood is considered to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deposition_(Michelangelo)
About the Artwork #3:
Rondanini Pieta
Michelangelo Buonarroti
1564
Marble
185 cm
Castello Sforzesco
Milan, Italy
The Rondanini Pietà is the last pietà that Michelangelo worked on, and he worked on it from 1552 until the last days of his life. The name Rondanini refers to the fact that the sculpture stood for centuries in the courtyard at the Palazzo Rondanini. This final sculpture revisited the theme of Mary mourning over the emaciated body of the dead Christ. Like his late series of drawings of the crucifixion, the sculpture was intended for his own tomb; it was produced at a time when Michelangelo's sense of his own mortality was growing. The elongated figures of Mary and Christ are a departure from the idealized figures that exemplified the sculptor's earlier style, and have been said to bear more of a resemblance to the attenuated figures of Gothic sculpture than those of the High Renaissance. The unfinished quality of the work fits with Michelangelo's progress away from naturalism and humanism and toward a more mystical Neoplatonism, in which he conceived of a sculpture as latent in the marble and requiring merely the removal of superfluous material to free it. In this manner, he seems to have replaced naturalistic human representation of corporeal qualities in an attempt to convey a purely spiritual idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondanini_Piet%C3%A0
About the Artist for #1, #2, & #3:
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564), known simply as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. His work had a major influence on the development of Western art, particularly in relation to the Renaissance notions of humanism and naturalism. He is often considered the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, artist Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the sixteenth century. He sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. Despite holding a low opinion of painting, he also created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of art—the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. At the age of seventy-one, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter's Basilica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo
https://www.michelangelo.org/#google_vignette
About the Music: “Stabat Mater” Part 1
Lyrics:
The grieving Mother
Stood weeping beside the cross
Where her Son was hanging.
Through her weeping soul,
Compassionate and grieving,
A sword passed.
Stabat Mater is a Latin hymn that recalls the intense sorrow of Mary seeing her beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, dying on the cross in His passion. A Franciscan friar named Jacopone da Todi is said to have written the original text of the Stabat Mater in the thirteenth century, although some scholars have attributed it to Pope Innocent III, among others. There are over sixty English translations of the Stabat Mater and it has been so popular that numerous composers, including Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Schubert, and Verdi, have set the original Latin text to music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabat_Mater
About the Composer:
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt, an Orthodox Christian, has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. Since 2013, Pärt has had the distinction of being the most performed contemporary composer in the world. Although the recipient of numerous awards and honors from nations around the globe, the humble maestro strives to keep out of the limelight, endeavoring to give God credit for his many accomplishments. The newly established International Arvo Pärt Centre, located in the Estonian village of Laulasmaa, includes a research institute, an education and music centre, a museum, a publishing facility, and an archive of Pärt's works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvo_P%C3%A4rt
https://www.arvopart.ee/en/
About the Performer: Choir Vox Humana (Oslo) and string ensemble Inter Arcus, conductor Dag Jansson
Vox Humana is an Oslo-based chamber choir of young voices. The choir stages its own concert projects. They tour every summer, often to European countries, where they collaborate with other choirs.
https://www.voxhumana.no/english/
Dr. Dag Jansson conducts the chamber choir Vox Humana and teaches leadership and music pedagogy at the Norwegian Academy of Music, the University of Oslo, and Oslo University College.
https://www.intellectbooks.com/dag-jansson
About the Poetry and Poet:
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets,” who wrote in both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke's work as inherently "mystical.” His writings include one novel, several collections of poetry, and several volumes of correspondence in which he invokes haunting images that focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke
About the Devotion Writer:
Bruce Herman, M.F.A.
Artist, Writer, Curator, and Educator
Bruce Herman (b. 1953) is an American artist, writer, curator, and educator. Herman lives with his best friend Meg. They’ve lived on the same street for thirty-five years and share their woodland home with their daughter Sarah, her husband Peter, and grandson Tristan—along with two dogs, two barn cats, a horse named Willow, and assorted wildlife. Herman is a painter, writer, and public speaker who taught studio art for forty years and recently retired from Gordon College, where he continues to curate exhibitions. His art has been shown in more than one hundred fifty exhibitions—nationally in a dozen US cities, including New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and internationally in Canada, Italy, England, Japan, Hong Kong, and Israel. Bruce’s artwork is featured in many public and private art collections, including Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts; De Cordova Museum, Boston; Cape Ann Museum; the Vatican Museums in Rome; and in many colleges and universities throughout the US and Canada. His art and his words are widely published in books, journals, popular magazines, newspapers, and online art features.
https://www.bruceherman.com/