Sermon: At the cross her station keeping
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Good Friday 2010: Three Hour Service Pt 1
HYMNS THAT SPEAK TO US
Talk No 2: At the cross her station keeping CP 104
Jenny Wilkens
The first hymn I have chosen is perhaps more familiar to us by its Latin name, which is also the name of the tune we are using today: Stabat mater, or in its longer version, Stabat mater dolorosa, the sorrowful mother was standing, standing at the cross, looking on at the crucifixion of her son.
The hymn we have today in its English translation by Edward Caswall, is part of a very long medieval poem in Latin, originally twenty three-line stanzas, so it would have been ten six-line verses. Our version has but four of the ten verses.
Who wrote it? Well, it's been attributed to a number of authors of the thirteenth century, including the monk Jacopone Da Todi, mentioned here, but also to Pope Innocent III, St Bonaventura and other Franciscan sources.
The words of the Stabat Mater have been set to music by many composers, including Palestrina, Pergolesi, Haydn, Rossini and Dvorak.
What is it all about? Well it is really a meditation on the suffering of Mary during his crucifixion. It explores the emotions that Mary must have been feeling as she stood looking on at the cross, powerless to help her son as he hung there, pinned to the cross, and undergoing the agonizing suffering of crucifixion, one of the cruelest ways of putting someone to death ever conceived.
Many have praised the power and immediacy of its spectrum of emotions, its pathos, the vividness of the descriptions, the intensity of the feelings expressed. It has been called powerful in its pathos beyond almost anything that has ever been written. A German poet, Tieck, on hearing Pergolesi's Stabat Mater wrote, I had to turn away to hide my tears, especially at the place, 'Vidit sum dulcem natum', she beheld her tender child. Others have critiqued what they see as the hymn's Mariolatry, or worship of Mary, although we need to remember that Catholics do not pray to Mary as the giver of the mercies desired, but only as the interceder, thinking that she is more likely to prevail with her Son than any poor unaided sinner on earth.
Certainly the words of the verses we have here could not be accused of Mariolatry, the only prayer in verse 5 is clearly addressed to Jesus as Redeemer, asking that we might emulate the qualities of Mary's love and devotion even unto death.
I wonder what you make of this hymn, you will have some time to reflect upon its words shortly.
I think what draws me to it is that it depicts very much the human face of the cross, and the characters and relationships involved there. So often our focus is on Jesus and his death for me, for my salvation, and we rightly value this immensely, but it is a good reminder on this Good Friday to recall not just the physical suffering of Jesus on the cross, but also the emotional pain and suffering as the relationships of three years, and in Mary's case, the relationship of a lifetime is stretched beyond endurance and then broken in the finality of death.
For Mary, there must have been the dawning reality that this was the hour of the fulfilment of the prophecy of the aged Simeon when he had said to the young new mother Mary in the temple: 'And a sword will pierce your own soul too.' (Luke 2:35)
This hymn calls me too to look at the endings of the Gospel narratives of the Passion and to reflect on the small snippets of verses that we find there that remind us that the women disciples were there at the cross, watching and waiting in powerlessness but solidarity, while it seems nearly all the men disciples had fled and gone into hiding.
It's salutary to compare the Gospel passages:
+ Matthew 27: 55, 56 Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
+ Mark 15:40 There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow Jesus and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
+ Luke 23:49 But all Jesus' acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
While Matthew and Mark's accounts are very similar, it is interesting that Luke gives a very summary view of this part of the Passion story, giving us no names at all, either of men or women.
But the passage which is thought to have inspired the Stabat Mater is in John's Gospel, as so often giving us a picture we do not find in the other gospels.
+ John 19: 25 Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
Only here in John's gospel do we see Jesus' mother at the cross, and only here do we witness this great exchange, this great show of compassion from the suffering Christ who is yet able to think about what his death will mean both to his mother, and to this 'disciple whom Jesus loved', usually thought to be John, although some think it was Lazarus. Jesus provides new family for both, new care, new relationship.
It seems amazing to me that Jesus was able to do this while under such duress himself. In times of great pressure and pain, it is so easy to become irritable and to react dismissively and ungraciously with people - I know that has been both a temptation and a reality for me over these recent busy days!
Here Jesus leaves us an extraordinary example. Even when we are at our wits' end and feel driven to the limit of our resources, Jesus gives us an example and calls us to think beyond ourselves in giving care for others, challenging us to speak and act kindly and with thoughtfulness. How we need the help of the fruit of God's Spirit to do that. How we need to pray in the words of our hymn's final verse:
'that my heart fresh ardour gaining, and a purer love attaining, may with thee acceptance find.'
Prayer: God of our Lord Jesus Christ, who through Mary caused him to be humanly born, only to die upon the cross, grant to us the grace to watch with her as we recall his passion, and the strength to respond to the sufferings of the world of which we are so well aware. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
