Traditional prayer
Stabat Mater (At the Cross Her Station Keeping)
At the Cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last:
Through her heart, his sorrow sharing,
All his bitter anguish bearing,
Now at length the sword had pass’d.
Oh, how sad and sore distress’d
Was that Mother highly blest
Of the sole-begotten One!
Christ above in torment hangs;
She beneath beholds the pangs
Of her dying glorious Son.
Is there one who would not weep,
Whelm’d in miseries so deep
Christ’s dear Mother to behold?
Can the human heart refrain
From partaking in her pain,
In that Mother’s pain untold?
Bruis’d, derided, curs’d, defil’d,
She beheld her tender Child
All with bloody scourges rent;
For the sins of his own nation,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till his Spirit forth He sent.
O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
Make my heart with thine accord:
Make me feel as thou hast felt;
Make my soul to glow and melt
With the love of Christ my Lord.
Holy Mother! pierce me through;
In my heart each wound renew
Of my Saviour crucified:
Let me share with thee His pain,
Who for all my sins was slain,
Who for me in torments died.
Let me mingle tears with thee,
Mourning Him who mourn’d for me,
All the days that I may live:
By the Cross with thee to stay;
There with thee to weep and pray;
Is all I ask of thee to give.
Virgin of all virgins best!
Listen to my fond request:
Let me share thy grief divine;
Let me, to my latest breath,
In my body bear the death
Of that dying Son of thine.
Wounded with his every wound,
Steep my soul till it hath swoon’d
In his very blood away;
Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
Lest in flames I burn and die,
In his awful Judgment day.
Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
Be thy Mother my defence,
Be thy Cross my victory;
While my body here decays,
May my soul thy goodness praise,
Safe in Paradise with Thee.
Latin
Stabat Mater Dolorosa
Juxta crucem lacrymosa
Dum pendebat Filius.
Cujus animam gementem,
Contristatam et dolentem,
Pertransivit gladius.
O quam tristis et afflicta
Fuit illa benedicta
Mater Unigeniti!
Quæ mœrebat, et dolebat,
Pia Mater dum videbat
Nati pœnas incliti.
Quis est homo qui non fleret
Matrem Christi si videret
In tanto supplicio?
Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
Dolentem cum Filio.
Pro peccatis suæ gentis
Vidit Jesum in tormentis,
Et flagellis subditum.
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
Moriendo desolatum,
Dum emisit spiritum.
Eja Mater, fons amoris,
Me sentire vim doloris
Fac, ut tecum lugeam.
Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
In amando Christum Deum
Ut sibi complaceam.
Sancta Mater, istud agas,
Crucifixi fige plagas
Cordi meo valide.
Tui Nati vulnerati,
Tam dignati pro me pati,
Pœnas mecum divide.
Fac me tecum pie flere,
Crucifixo condolere,
Donec ego vixero,
Juxta crucem tecum stare
Et me tibi sociare
In planctu desidero
Virgo Virginum præclara,
Mihi jam non sis amara,
Fac me tecum plangere.
Fac, ut portem Christi mortem,
Passionis fac consortem,
Et plagas recolere.
Fac me plagis vulnerari,
Fac me cruce inebriari,
Et cruore Filii.
Flammis ne urar succensus,
Per te, Virgo, sim defensus
In die judicii.
Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
Da per Matrem me venire
Ad palmam victoriæ.
Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animæ donetur
Paradisi gloria. Amen.
About this prayer
The hymn begins where St. John’s Gospel stands still: “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother” (John 19:25, Douay-Rheims). It looks first, and then it asks. For four stanzas it watches the Mother beneath her dying Son; from “O thou Mother! fount of love!” it turns to prayer, and the one who sings asks to stand where she stood, to feel what she felt, and to be defended by her at the judgment. Its last word goes to Christ: “Be thy Cross my victory.”
Her grief was foretold. When she brought the Child to the Temple, Simeon said to her: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:35, Douay-Rheims). The Catechism teaches that at the Cross Mary stood by her Son as God had planned, united with a mother’s heart to the offering He made of Himself, and was given by Him to His disciple as mother (CCC 964). The Stabat Mater is that teaching set to verse, and it asks for the same union.
No one knows for certain who wrote it. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) records that by the end of the fourteenth century it was known to all classes; it calls the common ascription to the Franciscan poet Jacopone da Todi (d. 1306) “very questionable,” and thinks Innocent III the only other probable author. It entered the Roman Missal and Breviary in 1727 for the Feast of the Seven Dolours, and in the Breviary it was divided between Vespers, Matins and Lauds, which is how Edward Caswall printed it. The same encyclopedia counts more than sixty English versions and names Caswall’s the one most used in hymnals.
The English is Caswall’s as it first appeared in his Lyra Catholica of 1849, apostrophes and all. The Latin beside it is the Raccolta’s of 1910, which prints the same translation on the facing column, with modernized spelling and a few small changes.
When to pray it
- On 15 September, the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.
- On Fridays, the day of the Cross, and through Holy Week.
- At a deathbed or after a death, when what is needed is to stay and not to leave.
- When a child suffers and you cannot take the suffering from them.
- Before the crucifix at home, a stanza at a time.