Our Lady of Sorrows

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary of Magdala” (John 19:25).

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. It comes immediately after yesterday's Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. It’s very logical that we find Our Lady beside the Cross.

Before, it used to be known as the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady.

Our Lady had a number of sorrows in her life that God permitted: the prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35); the flight into Egypt (Matt. 2:13-15); The Loss of the Child for three days (Luke 2:41-50); Our Lady meeting Our Lord on His way to Calvary (Luke 23:27-31, John 19:17); the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (John 19:25-30); The body of Jesus being taken down from the Cross (Luke 23:50-54, John 19:31-37); and the burial of Our Lord (Luke 23:50-56, John 19:38-42, Mark 15:40-47). These are traditionally referred to as the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady.

It's a feast that was started back in the 12th Century, promoted by the Cistercians and the Servites. In [1817], Pius VII extended this devotion to the whole Church. In 1912, St. Pius X decreed that it should be celebrated on September 15.

During the Mass today, we have a special poem before the Gospel called a Sequence. It's only one of four days in the year where we have that Sequence, the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, the Sorrowful Mother beside the Cross.

St. Bernard said Mary's Son “died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since his” (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo in dom. infra oct. Assumptionis).

She shared in all the sufferings of her Son, from the day that Simeon predicted that a sword would pierce her heart until the day when she saw Him on the Cross, and she stood beneath the Cross, and saw Him die.

By her selfless sharing in the sufferings of the Redeemer, she merited to become truly Our Mother and Mother of the Church.

The early revelations to Our Lady in her life, to a large extent, were revelations of joy. “Do not be afraid, Mary, because you have found grace in God” (Luke 1:30).

The “tidings of great joy” from the angels at the birth of Christ (Luke 2:10). When she went to visit Elizabeth, “the babe in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44).

It's only with Simeon that the cross begins to be mentioned. “Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, ‘He is destined for the fall and for the rise of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is opposed. And a sword will pierce your soul too, so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (cf. Luke 2:34-35).

Simeon also talks about the sign of contradiction. These must have been puzzling words for Our Lady—her first encounter with the message of the mission of her Son, that it would involve the cross. It’s very meaningful for each one of us.

I was coming back from a retreat one time in a place called Macau and passing through Hong Kong airport. I was changing the last piece of Hong Kong currency into Singapore currency where I was going.

At the exchange counter, suddenly there was a man at my left elbow. I felt that he was looking over my shoulder to see how much money I had, so that he would know how much to ask for.

I felt a bit vulnerable, a bit got at. I felt this wasn't fair. ‘This guy seems to be a real professional.’ When I turned around from the counter, the thoughts that were going through my mind were not very priestly.

This man is standing there, and the first thing he says to me is, “Are you a man of God?” Oh, that was painful. Emotional blackmail.

He said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” And I said “No,” and I was thinking: ‘Is it five, is it ten, is it the whole twenty?’ I could see myself walking home that night.

And then he said, “Why is love so painful?” I was rather perplexed. Why is love so painful? That's a very unusual question to try and answer at Hong Kong airport when you're rushing for a plane.

They had lived together in Taipei for two years. He had smothered her with love. He said, “Now she's run off back to China. I came to look for her. I couldn't find her.” And he said, “I can't sleep at night. Why is love so painful?”

I asked him if he ever knew of Jesus Christ. He had a Muslim background, but he might have had an Italian grandmother in Seattle. It was all very unusual.

We talked for a few minutes. I realized here is a real-life 27-year-old guy with a broken heart. In all the movies and novels, it's always the women who have broken hearts, but here was a guy with a broken heart.

We swapped emails and eventually, we went our separate ways. But I think I learned more from the interchange than he did.

Now every time I pass through an airport, and I see people rushing here and there, often going very fast but not knowing where they're going, I often think that if you scratch a little bit with all these people, you'll find a lot of broken hearts.

The world is full of broken hearts. But Our Lady has given us the remedy for a broken heart. Two Panadol four times a day won't mend a broken heart.

Only Our Lady can do that, and her Son, because she allowed her own heart to be “pierced by a sword.” She knows what it is to have a broken heart.

Fulton Sheen says if ever God, in our life, allows our heart to be broken, it's because He wants to enter into it a little more (cf. Fulton Sheen, Through the Year with Fulton Sheen).

Only He and His Mother can mend a broken heart, but you have to give them all the pieces.

It may be that at some stage in our life, we might suffer from a broken heart, or God might bring some soul in contact with us who has a broken heart. We know the remedy is to encourage them to go closer to the heart of Mary and to the heart of Christ. Many things get solved there.

Today's feast day is one of great significance. The suffering of Our Lady is very much united to the suffering of her Son.

In the Sequence of the Mass, we read:

“O sweet Mother, font of love,
Touch my spirit from above,
Make my heart with yours accord.
Make me feel as you have felt,
Make my soul to glow and melt,
With the love of Christ my Lord” (Hymn, Stabat Mater).

Our Lord wanted His Mother there beside the cross. Part of His suffering, in some ways, was to have her present, letting her see everything that He was going through. She becomes a participant in His supreme sacrifice.

We celebrate today the co-redemptive suffering of Our Lady. The Church invites us to offer our many little difficulties, little mortifications, for the salvation of souls, like Our Lady beside the Cross.

Through union with the work of redemption of her Son, Mary underwent the torments of any good mother who sees her son in the throes of death.

In addition, her pain had the salvific quality of Christ's own Passion. She, who is full of grace and the most pure “handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38), offers up all her actions in intimate union with her Son. Their value is virtually without limit.

We will never entirely comprehend Our Lady's immense love for Jesus, which is the cause of her great suffering.

The Book of Lamentations says, “All you who pass by the way, look and see, was there ever a sorrow to compare with my sorrow?” (Lam. 1:12).

It can be consoling to know that any little suffering that God might permit in our life—Our Lady and her Son have already been there.

They know all our trials and challenges and contradictions and heartbreaks. The anguish of Our Lady is greater on account of her great holiness.

One spiritual writer says, “When the soldiers strike the body of Christ, it is as if Mary is subjected to every blow. When they pierce his head with thorns, Our Lady feels their sharp penetration. When the same men offer him gall and vinegar, the Blessed Mother tastes all the bitterness. As they spread his body on the Cross, Mary is torn from within” (cf. Adolphe Tanquerey, The Divinization of Suffering).

Her love allows her to endure all His sufferings as if they were her own.

The more a person loves, the more he or she identifies with the pain of the beloved. St. Alphonsus says, “A brother’s death is more upsetting than a pet’s. A son’s dying is more trying than a friend’s. To get a grasp of Mary’s grief at the crucifixion we need somehow to appreciate the great extent of her love for her Son” (Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary).

On account of Our Lord's profound sensitivity to the malice of sin, she also participated in that sensitivity. Sin is an offense against God, a wicked affront to His infinite holiness, the cause of His Passion.

That's why one of the messages that we have to transmit in the world is that the greatest evil is sin. The world may present all sorts of things to us as evils—unemployment, lack of material things, ill health, obesity, all sorts of other problems—but none of these things can keep us out of heaven.

They may be the means to get to heaven. The only thing that can keep us out of heaven is sin.

Sin is much more serious than a mere transgression. The Virgin realized this more than any other creature. On account of her own awareness of the enormous evil of sin, Mary was plunged in bitter grief on beholding its horrible consequences for her Son.

A spiritual writer says, “Every one of us contributes in some way toward increasing the suffering of Christ. For this reason, we should rejoice to be able to meditate slowly on sin's impact on the loving hearts of Jesus and Mary. We will then accept our share in their suffering and make reparation gladly” (Adolphe Tanquerey, The Divinization of Suffering).

Reparation or atonement is a spirit whereby we say Sorry for the sins we have committed, and we feel sorry for the sins of the whole world—all the ways in which God is offended through lies, through drunkenness, through drugs, through contraception, through abortion, through euthanasia, through stealing and dishonesty.

Part of our role as followers of Christ is to be on the Cross with His Mother and atone to God for all these things. And sometimes to say Sorry with our deeds, with our bodies. Sometimes our bodies can say what our lips cannot say.

Our Lady beside the Cross has been described as the Lady of Fair Weeping. In other moments she's described as the Lady of Fair Love.

Beside the Cross, the Lady of Fair Weeping. Her tears are beautiful. These are the sorrows of one who is all beautiful, fully free from the deformity of sin. Tota pulchra, all beauty, even beside the Cross.

The sinless spirit filled the heart of Mary and is beautifully centered on the will of the Father.

Our Lady, says one writer, feels with Jesus and for us. She gives, she offers, she doesn't merely let go. She doesn't assist passively or patiently at the sacrifice of her Son. It's very active, very dynamic. It's also very silent (cf. Albert the Great, Mariale).

One thing we learned from Our Lady is to be silent beside the Cross. Our silence is often an indication of our holocaust, our peace, our serenity, our acceptance of the will of God.

The Lord wanted to show us through Our Lady, and also through St. Joseph, the creatures He loved most, the close relationship happiness and redemptive efficacy have with the Cross.

Even though Our Lady's entire life leads up to Calvary at her Son's side, there's a special moment when her participation in the sufferings of Jesus is revealed with particular clarity. It's in that interchange with Simeon: “Your own heart, a sword will pierce.”

In the immolation of her Son, Mary glimpses the grandeur of His final redemptive act. God also wants to reveal to her the depth of His sacrifice that is to come and her own particular role in it.

Moved by the Holy Spirit, the just man Simeon tells her, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign that shall be contradicted. And your own soul a sword shall pierce, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).

These prophetic words clearly announce that her life will be intimately associated with the redemptive work of her Son.

Pope St. John Paul, in his Encyclical on Our Lady, “The Mother of the Redeemer,” comments on Simeon's words. He said, “Simeon’s words seem like a ‘Second Annunciation’ to Mary, for they tell her of the historical circumstances in which the Son is to accomplish his mission, namely, in misunderstanding and sorrow. … They also reveal that she will have to live her obedience of faith in suffering, at the…Savior’s side, and that her motherhood will be mysterious and sorrowful” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Redemptoris Mater, Point 16, March 25, 1987).

It’s interesting that Scripture uses the word “contradiction.” Maybe often in our day, there may be little contradictions, misunderstandings, miscommunications. When the devil can't attack frontally, often he attacks obliquely through those types of contradictions.

Our Lord didn't spare His own Mother all sorts of pain and suffering.

After Bethlehem, they may have settled into a modest home in Bethlehem somewhere, but then they have this precipitous flight into Egypt (Matt. 2: 13-15).

They have to gather up all their belongings and make this hasty journey to Egypt. God doesn't spare her exile in a strange land, where she would have to begin family life anew.

Then back in Nazareth, established once again in their home (Matt. 2:23), she's suddenly disconcerted over the disappearance of the 12-year-old Jesus, who had been missing in Jerusalem for several days (Luke 2:42-47).

I remember, as a kid, seeing a mother who had lost her child for just a few hours on a beach one day. She was almost hysterical.

But we find Our Lady serene, although troubled. We see that Our Lord permits her to undergo all sorts of unsettling trials.

During His public ministry, Our Lady must have heard all the false rumors and calumnies regarding her Son. She must have been aware of the various plots of the Jews against Our Lord.

Closer to the consummation of His redemptive mission, reports arrive, one by one, concerning the events taking place during the night of the Passion.

She hears the shouts calling for His death the next morning and experiences His abandonment by the disciples, in union with Him. They all go away and leave Him alone.

Our Lady meets her Son on the slope leading up to Calvary. Their eyes meet. What a meeting must that have been, we're told. Who can comprehend the agony engulfing Our Lady's heart at this juncture?

She stands there and sees how they nail Him to the Cross. Horrible insults and the prolonged torment of the crucifixion follow.

We're told again in the Sequence of today's Mass:

“O, how sad and sore distressed,
Was that Mother highly blessed,
Of the sole begotten One.
Christ above in torments hangs,
She beneath beholds the pangs,
Of her dying, glorious Son” (Hymn, Stabat Mater).

When we consider the active role our own sins play in the sorrow of Our Mother, we can ask her today to help us share in her suffering through a more profound contrition for our personal sins and the sins of all mankind.

We can try to use our weekly sacramental Confession to grow in that spirit of contrition and atonement, to savor that sacrament, to thank God for it, to make use of those brief moments to grow in this virtue.

It's good to consider for a few moments the Passion of Christ and of Our Lady before we go to Confession. This can help us to be more generous in making reparation for our own offenses and to accept the little crosses more serenely and more cheerfully every day, maybe, thanking God for them.

Our Lady is the Comforter of the Afflicted because she knew what it meant to be afflicted. We can find consolation in her wounded heart.

Today's feast is an occasion to accept all the adversity that we encounter as a personal purification, to co-redeem with Christ.

Our Mother teaches us not to complain in the midst of any trials that may come, as we know she never would.

She encourages us to unite our sufferings to the sacrifice of her Son, and so offer them as spiritual gifts for the benefit of our family, for the Church, for the whole of humanity.

The sufferings that we have at hand are there for us to sanctify: all sorts of little daily reversals, extended periods of waiting, sudden changes of plans, projects that don't turn out as we expected, the common cold or simple sicknesses, little setbacks that come in all sorts of ways. Maybe at a certain moment we even lack necessities, such as a job to support our family.

These are moments for us to turn to her and find our consolation in her. She's there when Our Lord is stripped of His garments in the Tenth Station of The Way of the Cross. Profound humiliation. She must have known that garment well. Possibly she sewed it with her own hands, "woven without seam from the top” (cf. John 19:23).

She leads us to embrace all these moments when maybe, sickness knocks at our door. In such an event we can ask for the grace to welcome the illness as a divine caress.

We can give thanks for the gift of health that we may have enjoyed for decades, years, weeks, and months—a great gift that possibly we never stopped to thank God for.

In whatever way sickness may come, it can be the touchstone of our love for God, an occasion for renewing our confidence in Him, and for growing in the theological virtues of faith, of hope, of charity.

We can make an act of acceptance of the will of God. “Lord, I accept all these circumstances, whatever you want, whenever, and however you want.”

We can end our prayer turning to Our Lady once again, Our Lady of Sorrows, asking her that we might have the priestly soul that she had.

She had a priestly soul because she participated in the priestly virtues of obedience, generosity, sacrifice, service.

The Second Vatican Council talks about this baptismal priesthood, the common priesthood of the faithful (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 10, November 21, 1964; Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 1647), exemplified by Our Lady beside the Cross (John 19:25).

St. Albert says she joined herself to the Father of Mercies in His greatest work of mercy, which He shared in the Passion of her Son, and thus became the help of our Redemption and the Mother of our spiritual generation (cf. Albert the Great, Mariale).

Mother, may you make my soul burn in loving Christ, Our Lord.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MML