September 2021 Print

The Crucifixion as the Birth of the Church

By Jonathan Wanner

Most devout Catholics would be hard-pressed to think of a Marian poem outside of the familiar chants, carols, and hymns that rightfully hold a sacrosanct place in the liturgy. Where would one even begin such a search? Certainly, the corpus of Richard Crashaw would be one of the last hiding-spots one might explore. As a lesser-known Baroque poet, his England had little of the Marian enchantment that brands so many Late Medieval poems and miracle legends. He lived, after all, in the wake of Elizabeth I—a Queen who redirected Marian devotion to herself, appropriating such Marian symbols as the rose, the moon, the star, the phoenix, and the pearl.¹ Yet, just as the greatest heroes are bred from the most terrible wars, so too the finest Marian poems might find fertile ground in soil that is otherwise hostile toward Our Lady.

There is a reason why Crashaw’s “Lady lyrics” are a garden well worth forking: with skull-cracking wit, he cross-pollinates Marian dogmas, the devotion to Her Seven Sorrows, and Patristic teachings. Most of the poems are epigrams—brief word-puzzles that use riddling language such as metaphors and irony to turn common observations into rare and memorable insights. Crashaw is especially interested in the electrifying reversals that one may encounter when reading the Church Fathers: Mary is a virgin, a “fountain seal’d,” even while a mother²; Eve’s disobedience slew man, yet Mary “the maiden Eve’s” obedience saved him³; Mary is God’s “faithful daughter,” yet Christ’s “mother.”⁴ One reversal, however, stands out for its rarity: the notion that Mary’s birthing pangs occurred not at Christ’s nativity, but at the nativity of the Church. It is the central theme of his Latin epigram “On the Easy Birth of the Blessed Virgin” [In partum B. Virg. Non difficilem]:⁵

Nec facta est tamen illa Parens impune; quod almi
Tam parcens uteri venerit ille Puer.
Una haec nascentis quodcunque pepercerit hora,
Toto illum vitae tempore parturijt

Gaudia parturientis erat semel ille parenti;
Quotidie gemitus parturientis erat

Nor was she made a mother without punishment; Even though that Boy
Came from her nurturing womb very much sparing her [pain].
Whatever (agony) that single hour of birth had spared,
She was in labor with him her whole life long.

Once he was the joys of his mother’s laboring;
Then daily he was the groans of her laboring.

The poem’s first stanza alludes to the time-honored tradition that Mary experienced childbirth “without punishment,” i.e. without pain. Theologians usually derive this conclusion from Mary’s Immaculate Conception: because Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin, she would have been spared the birthing pangs that punished Eve for her first disobedience (Gen. 3:16). A similar argument excuses Mary’s birth pangs on account of her perpetual virginity. Any mother would have maternal badges of suffering, such as stretch marks and varicose veins; Mary’s virginal body, however, remained miraculously intact throughout the entire process of Jesus’ birth.⁶ In the words of Crashaw, “The door was shut, yet let in day, / The fountain seald, yet life found way.”⁷ If her body exhibited no signs of birthing pains, surely it is because the Nativity was solely a pleasure.

To skeptics, the notion of a painless Nativity seems to defy the Blessed Virgin’s humanity. Surely Our Lady cannot be an authentic mother if she did not endure every mother’s “rite of passage.” Women simply cannot relate—not to a Mary who, like a fairy, appears human but is a goddess in disguise—a goddess who needs no Tylenol, no epidural because God gave her a “Get Out of Pain Free” card. Yet, Crashaw never insists that Mary lived altogether free from pain. As the second and third stanzas suggest, the “single hour” of a joyful nativity would soon become a “whole life” of “groans”⁸; Mary would endure a martyrdom, not in a moment, but throughout her life. One need only glance over her Seven Sorrows to recollect a few of the “groaning” moments that Crashaw is alluding to here:

1. The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35)
2. The flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15)
3. Loss of the Child Jesus for three days (Luke 2:41-50)
4. Mary meets Jesus on His way to Calvary (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17)
5. Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (John 19:25-30)
6. The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross (Luke 23:50-54; John 19:31-37)
7. The burial of Jesus (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47)

For Crashaw, the one-time joy of Christ’s birth gives way to “daily” labor pains—not because Mary’s womb would suffer daily contractions, but because she must routinely grieve during Christ’s infancy, boyhood, and manhood. In this respect, she “was in labor with him her whole life long.”

With ironic wit, the final stanza surprises us with the realization that Mary’s labor pangs are actually the pains Christ suffered on behalf of the Church: “Once he was the joys of his mother’s laboring; / Then daily he was the groans of her laboring.”⁹ Here Christ “was the groans” of Mary’s labor because His Crucifixion figuratively begot the Church. Christ himself alludes to his Passion in terms of childbirth in John 16:21. Just as a woman “in labor hath sorrow” then afterward rejoices “that a man is born,” so too Christ endured agony to bring forth the Church.¹⁰ To some, the image of Christ “birthing” the Church seems odd, even improper: Christ, after all, is neither a woman nor pregnant, and the Church is not literally a rosy-skinned newborn. Crashaw, however, is not asking us to fixate on Christ’s body as if it were feminine. The poem, rather, focuses on two similarities that childbirth and the Crucifixion share—sorrow and new life.

The significance of these two similarities comes to light when we consider the Patristic tradition that Christ birthed the Church from his pierced side. As St. John Chrysostom explains, the water and blood that issued from Christ’s spear-wound, symbolizing Baptism and the Eucharist respectively, poured out for humanity the fundamental sacraments that “give rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” so that “From these two sacraments the Church is born.”¹¹ The word “born,” in this case, is especially fitting because Eve’s birth from Adam’s side is a typological reference to the Church’s birth from Christ’s side: “As God then took a rib from Adam`s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and water after his own death.”¹² Returning to Crashaw’s epigram, we find the notion of Ecclesia’s birth enriches and clarifies the final stanza. Christ, as Crashaw says, “was the groans of her [Mary’s] labor,” because Christ figuratively suffered the labor pangs Mary was spared when He birthed the Church.¹³

Above, God delivers Eve from Adam’s side. Below, He delivers Ecclesia from Christ’s side.
Bible moralisèe: The Creation of Eve and The Birth of Ecclesia, fol. 2v (detail), ONB Han. Cod. 2554, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. Made in Paris, 1225–49.

Just as Mary’s labor pangs were Christ’s, so too Christ’s labor pangs were Mary’s. Mary may not have been the primary “birther” of the Church—her blood and water did not spill from Christ’s side—but she endured Christ’s travail by imitating His pain as perfectly as a human may. As St. Lawrence Justinian says, “The heart of the Virgin was made the brightest mirror of Christ’s Passion … The Son was crucified in body, the Mother in mind.”¹⁴ Crashaw’s epigram, due to its brevity, does not elaborate upon how Mary is a mirror of the Passion, but we can imagine what Crashaw means by considering his poetic paraphrase of the Stabat Mater: “Sancta Maria Dolorum.” Mary is so much Christ’s likeness, that “Each wound of His” is “All, more at home in her owne heart.”¹⁵ Mary and Christ “Discourse alternate wounds to another,” so that whatever injury Christ endures, Mary experiences in a different form.¹⁶ When Christ’s body “weeps Blood,” Mary’s eyes “bleed Tears.”¹⁷ Christ’s nails “write swords” in Mary’s heart, and these in turn “growing with his pain, / Turn Speares” and return to Christ again.¹⁸ This union—that Mary becomes an Image of her Son crucified—is the ultimate irony of Crashaw’s epigram, since it means that the pain she was spared at Christ’s birth was figuratively realized at His death, the Church’s Nativity. In the words of St. John Damascene, “The Virgin suffered at the Passion the pangs she escaped in child-birth.”¹⁹

By “laboring” with Christ at his Crucifixion, Mary reversed Eve’s punishment (Gen. 3:16), making of it a happy fault. As much as the Old Eve slew all, Mary the “New Eve” conceived our sacramental life, not only birthing Christ, but mirroring his pierced side in her heart. Looking to her, mothers can find empathy in the painful nativity of the Church, even if they struggle to relate to the painless nativity of Christ. By the singular gift of labor pangs, women may become, like Mary, a looking glass of Christ’s wounds. Like Mary’s, a mother’s martyrdom is rarely in one moment, but throughout a life, as the “birthing pains” continue through her newborn’s infancy, childhood, and adulthood. By her child, her sanctity is reared. By her body’s laboring, her soul may find itself a child at Christ’s sacramental side, where if she will not bleed with Him, she at least may weep with His mother.

Endnotes:

¹ McClure, Peter, and Robin Headlam Wells, “Elizabeth I as a Second Virgin Mary,” Renaissance Studies 4, no. 1 (1990): 39.

² Richard Crashaw, “O Gloriosa Domina,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), line 36.

³ Crashaw, “O Gloriosa Domina,” line 26.

⁴ Crashaw, “Luke 1:38, To the Blessed Virgin, Believing,” line 4.

⁵ Note: The English translation is my own. Richard Crashaw, “In partum B. Virg. Non difficilem,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), 265.

⁶ CCC 499, citing Lumen Gentium, 57.

⁷ Richard Crashaw, “O Gloriosa Domina,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), lines 35-36.

⁸ Richard Crashaw, “In partum B. Virg. Non difficilem,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), lines 4, 6.

⁹ Richard Crashaw, “In partum B. Virg. Non difficilem,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), lines 5-6.

¹⁰ Douay-Rheims Bible

¹¹ From the “Catecheses” by St. John Chrysostom, bishop (Cat. 3, 13-19; SC 50, 174-177).

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Richard Crashaw, “In partum B. Virg. Non difficilem,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), line 6.

¹⁴ Cornelius à Lapide, “The Great Commentary of Cornelius À Lapide: S. Matthew’s Gospel—Chaps. 22 to 28 and S. Mark’s Gospel—Complete,” trans. Thomas W. Mossman, Third Edition, vol. 3 (London: John Hodges, 1891), 249–325.

¹⁵ Richard Crashaw, “Sancta Maria Dolorum,” The Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw (New York: New York University Press, 1972), lines 9-10.

¹⁶ Ibid., Line 24.

¹⁷ Ibid., Lines 19-20.

¹⁸ Ibid., Line 27, 29-30.

¹⁹ Cornelius à Lapide, “The Great Commentary of Cornelius À Lapide: S. Matthew’s Gospel—Chaps. 22 to 28 and S. Mark’s Gospel—Complete,” trans. Thomas W. Mossman, Third Edition, vol. 3 (London: John Hodges, 1891), 249–325.

Scivias Codex, Virgin Birth