And when these too have passed, there is another pause, another interval of darkness, another pulseless silence, broken as before by the tide of radiance and song. Seven white banners inscribed with the Seven Last Words are borne by with the same mournful pomp, the same separate array. Whose the music, I know not: neither Haydn's, I am sure, nor Mercadante's, I think; but quite as effective, for the moment, as either. We looked and listened spell-bound; an overpowering illusion held us speechless and motionless; a dread expectation weighed at our hearts like lead; we were body and soul at Calvary, as once more the torchlight died away. And in the darkness, we asked ourselves, "Will they venture farther? Will they attempt the act of sacrifice itself? Why, the city of Prato would reel like Jerusalem—her graves would open and her dead would walk!"
But Prato is too merciful for that. After an interval of profound suspense, a lofty sable catafalque, encircled by priests arrayed in stole and surplice, is borne silently along—and on it, pale and unmoving, the shrouded image of the divine Victim, with all the agony of the Passion on the white lips and crimson brow. Consummatum est!—But as we sat unexpectant of more, another figure emerged from the settling gloom—the life-size effigy of the Mater Dolorosa, "following with clasped hands and streaming eyes the dead form of her Son." After all that long array of living actors, the introduction of any effigy, however perfect, must create a disillusion. And this one is far from perfect—far more suggestive of the Prado than of Calvary. The dead on the catafalque is appropriately represented by the inanimate; but when knights, soldiers, lictors, centurions, are moving, breathing flesh and blood, its application to the equally living Mother is a violent incongruity. The action has been too intensely vitalized to assimilate a counterfeit vitality, however sacred its significance.
"But what then?" asks the genius of Prato. "Am I to forego this tribute to my dear Padrona because it shocks the sensibilities of a speculative tourist? Does not my cathedral enshrine the very girdle of the Assumption that fell to the kneeling Thomas? Can you fix a single unorthodox or unscriptural significance upon these time-honored obsequies? In the final throes of crucifixion, was not the last thought of the dying Son, the last concern of the expiring Redeemer, for his Mother? Was not 'Behold thy Mother!' the last charge of the thirsting lips? We obey the Ecce Homo of Pilate: dare we disobey the Ecce Mater of Jesus?"
Let it be discriminated, however, that in the Ecce Mater we are summoned to contemplate our Blessed Lady, not in her agony, but in her maternity—in her relationship rather to the future than to the present. The Evangelists are singularly careful not to distinguish any finite sorrow—not even hers—from the overwhelming spectacle of immolated Deity. Had the Mater Dolorosa formed part of the funeral tableau, had she been pictured Dolentem CUM filio, had she been stationed directly at the bier so as to constitute a group or Pietà—although the inconsistency of effigy remained, yet the marbles of Angelo and the canvas of Raphael would have abundantly prepared us for the sight. But at that supreme moment, to present her, after a distinct interval, as a separate spectacle, was at variance with all the examples of Christian art. The Stabat Mater does not wander an inch from the Cross; though here, with exquisite propriety, as the sorrow of the Mother is revealed, the cross she clings to is so dimmed by her tears that we catch only mournful twilight glimpses of the DULCEM Natum—veiled, infinite, triumphant woe, but none of the vivid, minute, specific agony of the Passion.
The sublime reticence of the Evangelists, so far from diminishing the true glory of the Handmaid of the Lord, is in inspired accord both with her maiden humility and maternal dignity. The fathomless processes of redemption present themselves to our limited perceptions rather as consecutive than simultaneous. The paternal, the filial, the spiritual aspect of the Holy Trinity seems each consecutively prominent in the church. As the special work of the Redeemer is consummated, the special work of the Comforter begins. The sphere of the Paraclete is as broadly defined, as lovingly respected by the Son, as the sphere of the Padre Eterno. Infinitely dear as is the bond between babe and mother, we instinctively sympathize with the mystical courtesy that reserved the full exaltation of the Bride of the Dove, like the gift of the cloven tongues of fire, for the operation of the Holy Ghost.
"Vergine sola al mondo sensa esempio,
Che'l ciel di tue bellezze innamorasti."
And the hearts of the faithful, now as at Ephesus, are jealously alive to the full significance of her paramount title, "Mater Dei."
The mission of Peter, to feed the sheep, is not more emphatic than the mission of John as the child and guardian of Mary. The apostolic inheritor of the keys, and the executor of the cross who took her as his own, walk side by side through the ages, not in the flesh, indeed, but in the spirit, following the Lord till his coming. In this relation, the dearest disciple is as deathless as the church; under this aspect, Christian art loves to depict him; under this aspect he becomes the preferred of the Paraclete, as he has been the best beloved of Jesus—becomes the great herald of the incarnation; the prophet to whose vision the doors in heaven are opened; the bearer of the mystic challenge, "And the SPIRIT and the BRIDE say come!"
Salve Regina! Much as I should have preferred the chime of the Stabat Mater to any more direct suggestion, or to aught in imitative art save the very face of the San Sisto transformed by maternal sorrow, yet no man in Prato bows with deeper heartfelt reverence than I to the image of our ever honored Lady. Tuscany is not Mariolatrous enough for me. I should like it better with a Madonna presiding over every fountain and hallowing every pathway. And, in the deep hush that precedes the stir with which Prato struggles back to herself, the soul's conception of the Juxta crucem lacrymosa takes the place of the vanishing effigy, and, aided by the inspired seers of art, constructs some tenderer semblance of the blessed countenance.