By Vittoria Colonna
Bologna: Antonio Manutio, 1557[1]
Friday and the late hour prompt me to write of my sorrow at seeing the dead Christ in His mother’s arms and, if obedience did not give me strength, I would deem myself most cruel in being able to write of it, although much more ungrateful were I not to give it consideration. I see the sweet mother, her heart full to the brim with most burning love, tied by so many chains in the love of her Son that they cannot be expressed in ordinary language. Neither can we understand how she made herself a resting place for her dead Son, indeed for her own Lord and Father and for herself and her entire good, a resting place from past bitter travails and torment; not only to hold Him dead, but to make of her own, almost dead body, a sepulcher in that hour, of whatever living remained in her: so entirely was her body entombed with Christ’s. It seems to me the grief, which all day long the Virgin had stored up in her heart, so as to consume that most noble part, and that fire of love and torment her high-mindedness had scorned to display outwardly, and which had consumed and penetrated the depths of her soul, now, in touching Christ’s sacred body, grew with infinite abundance, and flowed through her eyes in bitterest tears, and through her lips in more burning sighs. Whence her tears washed and warmed Him in such a way that He appeared truly alive. Apart from his divinity, which had never left Him, I believe He had His usual great majesty and grace, indeed to an even greater degree, because whereas in others death is a violent act that injures them, in Christ, who had summoned and desired it with so much sweetness, it was an act so gentle, sweet, and pitiful that it softened every hard heart and inflamed every cold mind, so that death’s ugliness was not only beautiful in this most beautiful face, but pride turned into great sweetness, darkness into clear light; and that frightening blackness, which hurts the eyes of whoever looks at it, made resplendent and beautiful through Christ’s purity, gave happy assurance to whoever looked. O how desirable was that face, which in other dead people it seems one should shun! How many would wish to be under His mortal rule, to be united with the true Author of life!
I believe that the Queen of Heaven mourned Him in many ways: first as a human being, seeing this most beautiful body, created from her own flesh, entirely torn; and that hair, cherished by her with such care, having brought Him torment, which, full of His precious blood, fell around His face; the closed eyes that gave Him perpetual light; the mouth, as reward for such great and so much teaching, full of the bitterness of vinegar; the hands, which had blessed her as her Lord, and served her as a son, wounded; and His feet. And I believe, limb by limb, she mourned Him, remembering how they had served Him and how they had acted on her and our behalf on earth. But then, raised to a loftier thought, I believe that she was contemplating the sacred pierced head as the rich vessel in which all wisdom, divine and human, was gathered. The closed eyes in which were the sun of justice and mercy; the brow at whose command angels tremble and the elements obey; the wounded hands, which created the heavens, and thus the feet, which trod the stars; the closed lips, out of which breathed the fervor of the holy spirit; bloodless the body, which displayed the white and holy garb of pure innocence.
Then she meditated upon, even saw depicted in the divine face, the vestiges of charity, obedience, humility, patience, and peace in the divine face, saw first charity in its true seat, when He said: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do”; patience in saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That is, why do you make me sacrifice myself, when through love and patience I would prefer not to provide it so soon, but endure it much more slowly? Obedience, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit; and peace, when He said, “Woman, behold thy son;” and humility: “It is finished;” and thanking the Father, bowed His head, and let His spirit go with so much gentleness that although these virtues departed with the soul, which, endowed with a thousand heavenly graces, obeyed the Father in His duty, their imprint remained on the sacred body until His resurrection, to live then with Christ glorified, in a better life.
All this shone forth in Christ’s face more to the Madonna than to others, as she suffered more passionately. She was still thinking over what He had felt in that hour, and although she saw His closed eyes in that most sacred body, she knew that His soul’s eyes opened the gates of Limbo to the Holy Fathers. His lips were closed, but His more celestial ones were saying: “Lift up your gates, O ye princes.” She reflected that her weeping was the cause of joy to so many souls dearest to her, who had awaited so long that blessed day. But this did not allay her pain: rather it increased in her, because it made her duty, that of redeeming her descendants, even greater.
And I believe that Christ’s most bitter torment, while she watched, the enormous anxiety of giving Him succor, the continuous beseeching the Father to alleviate it, the varying sufferings, which made her toss and turn from pang to pang, almost took her outside herself, indeed entirely engrossed her in torment and overcame her with so many evils that she was never free to think of giving way and grieving. Now that she had Him in her arms and, in the meanwhile, was seeking, one by one, through the infinite causes of His torment, like someone who, to escape death, grasps a sword that cuts his hand, so she, feeling herself swoon, grasped Christ’s body, which sustained her, with its even greater wound.
O how lovingly she kissed His most holy wounds; and how in her mind she enclosed herself within the sacred side, whence she knew that the sacraments of our so many graces had flowed. With what true love, I believe, she wanted everyone in the entire world to be able to see what she saw, so that they might enjoy such immense grace. And had the angels not compensated for man’s ingratitude, I would feel great compassion for those who could have been there, but were not.
Alas, Peter, you heard Christ pray that your faith would not fail, come and turn your bitter tears into sweet ones. And you, James, who do not eat, waiting for Christ to be brought back from the dead, come and seize the true nourishment in His sweet wounds. And you, Philip, who wished to see the Father, come now and see Him remove humanity’s garb to reveal the precious brocade of His divinity. And you, Andrew, who did not believe that He filled so many people with so few loaves, come and see that open side, which can fill, indeed fills all good people, as many as fit in the world. And let Matthew come and see Him naked, the One who took away the weight of earthly riches to give him celestial and eternal ones; he would see clearly that He did not praise poverty to not love it, since He embraced it until death. I would call Thomas so that he might come and touch the holy wounds, as I am sure that this sweetness would increase love and faith in him so that he would not want to touch again, but because many profited by his incredulity, I will let him be. But I will indeed call Lazarus, who does not understand that his sweetest sister, a woman and weak, surpasses him in courage and love, precedes him in gratitude, and is superior to him in all the virtues. Alas, Lazarus, that Lord who wept for you, and who in your death made a greater sign of love than He had ever done in others’ [deaths], do you not come to mourn and bury Him, to make of yourself and with your body, resurrected by Him, a burning light with the fire of charity, to give visible and natural and divine light to the person who gave it to you? Will you not gratify at least with great laments that powerful voice, which called you back from Limbo to this life?
Why does the publican not come to honor himself at least by burying the good thief, to thank him for accompanying his Lord to His death? Perhaps through humility he would not have dared to touch Christ. Where is the man born blind, who does not open his eyes to so much light, since the lost light was restored to him with so much kindness by this Sun? Why does the Samaritan woman not come to drink anew at the fountain of life? Why does she not now lead all of her Samaria, if she truly recognized Him? What is the Canaanite woman doing if she is not showing here the greatness of her faith, so magnified by Him? Why does the centurion, who judged his house unworthy of being entered by Christ when He was alive, not come now to adore Him dead? Where is the true Israelite, Nathanael, whom Christ told was without guile, and that he would see such a great thing? Why does Zacchaeus not run so that he will no longer have to climb the tree to see Him? For all the rabble has left Him alone, and He is abandoned by His brothers and by the others.
Let all Jerusalem come: she will not be anguished to find the palms, or the clothes strewn in the streets, and to sing, “Blessed is he that cometh, etc.,” whose leaders have treated him so well that they will find Him naked on the ground, nails around His head instead of palms, the mother prostrate on the ground instead of the clothing, and with few friends weeping, instead of saying “Hosanna to the son of David.” Where is the widow who does not come, with her son returned to life, to mourn in gratitude for the compassion that the merciful Lord had for her? Why does she not help the holy mother grieve, she who has lost that Son, by whom her own son was so sweetly restored to her? Let the adulteress come, with the assurance that she will not be stoned by the Hebrews, now that all the stones of their harshness have been thrown upon Him, who saved her from death. Why does she who, by only touching the sacred hem, became spotless from the unclean sickness of her blood, not come to wash herself in the pure precious blood? Well, Martha, since you gave Him hospitality, how late you are in burying Him! And when you had nothing else, He still left you free with His grace, the gift of your resurrected brother. Do you think perhaps that it is enough for Magdalen to be there? Do you not know that she has buried Him in her heart and left you continually the care of the things of the world? She is truly there, mourning and serving Christ. She accompanies the Mother with such humility and with such a passionate love that she will be consoled before anyone else, to bear witness to the divine Judge of her faithful soul and of her bitter sorrow.
In the passing parade of gospel actors, Mary Magdalen is contrasted to the others, with the exception of the Virgin Mary, who is at the head of the parade. Colonna gives expression to the Johanine insight of the passion, its sacramental dimension, where blood and water, baptism and Eucharist, flow from the open side of Christ. It is the Virgin Mary who contemplates fully this mystery: “O how lovingly she kissed His most holy wounds; and how in her mind she enclosed herself within the sacred side, whence she knew that the sacraments of our so many graces had flowed.”
There are marked degrees of indifference to the crucified Christ amongst the others – Peter, James, Philip, Andrew, Matthew, Thomas, Lazarus, the publican, the man born blind, the Samaritan woman, the Canaanite woman, the centurion, Nathanael, Zacchaeus, all Jerusalem, the widow of Nain, the adulteress woman, Martha. Mary Magdalen is different, she has loved Christ more than the others, “she has buried Him in her heart”. It is “with such a passionate love” – caritas Christi urget nos – she is the first to announce the kerygma on the Easter morn.
The dramatic parade continues with the High Priest, the nine lepers, the man with little faith, the daughters of Jerusalem, and finally, with Colonna herself who now places herself within the passion scene: “O how envious will I always be of those who were there, and how much compassion to whoever was able to be there and was not… but I cry out with a sorrowful voice to so many ungrateful men who gave Joseph and Nicodemus alone the triumph and glory of the most beautiful work that could ever be done.” By this means Colanna now concludes the parade of gospel personages by announcing the kerygma by way of the experience of Joseph of Arimathea:
O most happy Joseph, you were loving with the same love: you were given the body of the One who could give Paradise to all living souls; you wrapped Him in your winding sheet, the One who bound Lucifer, loosened us from eternal suffering, broke down the Tartarean gates, opened Paradise, and freed the world.[2]
Colonna concludes the Plaints with the reaffirmation of the centrality of faith. It is not a profession of sola fide in its heterodox form, it is tightly bound to the Church; it is a meditation inspired by the day spent in Good Friday devotion; its ecclesial dimension is secured in the function, role and faith of the Virgin Mary:
Only faith kept her in life, and she kept faith alive by reinvesting the whole world with it, the world that was now deprived of it. Therefore, since all the treasure that the Christian can obtain is born of true faith, and having received it from the Virgin Mary, without whom it would have been extinguished, we should then consider how great is our obligation to her; so great, in fact, shall we find it that this our mortal life will not suffice a thousandth part to satisfy it.[3]
Brundin notes how this parallel’s with Ochino’s own position, at least before 1542, where preaching in Venice in 1539 he says: “The Virgin Mary, the holy virgin, was the one who most perfectly and better than any other creature contemplated Christ hung upon the cross with a living faith in the manner in which we too should contemplate him.”[4]
- Vittoria Colonna; Chiara Matraini; Lucrezia Marinella. Who Is Mary?: Three Early Modern Women on the Idea of the Virgin Mary (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe) Edited and translated by Susan Haskins, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 2008, I. Vittoria Colonna’s Plaint of the Marchesa di Pescara on the Passion of Christ, pages 47-65. Pages 53-61 are reproduced here. ↑
- Pages. 62-63. ↑
- P. 65. ↑
- Brundin, Vittoria Colonna and the spiritual poetics of the Italian Reformation, p. 142. ↑