"But this blessed woman, who was deemed worthy of gifts that are supernatural, suffered those pains, which she escaped at the birth, in the hour of the passion, enduring from motherly sympathy the rending of the bowels, and when she beheld Him, Whom she knew to be God by the manner of His generation, killed as a malefactor, her thoughts pierced her as a sword, and this is the meaning of this verse: "Yea, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also" (Lk 2:35). But the joy of the resurrection transforms the pain, proclaiming Him, Who died in the flesh, to be God."
~St. John Damascene: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4, 14.
The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin, by Albrecht Dürer. Oil on panel,
c. 1496; Alte Pinakothek, Munchen and Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.
c. 1496; Alte Pinakothek, Munchen and Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.