Our Lady of Sorrows (2026)

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, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

Today’s feast follows immediately upon the Triumph of the Cross. The Church reminds us of the special union that Our Lady shared in the sacrifice of her Son on Calvary.

The Christian faithful have long meditated upon this momentous scene as it is recorded by the four evangelists. During the 14th century, a sequence for the Mass called the Stabat Mater Dolorosa came into popular use in some countries.

In 1814, Pope Pius VII extended the devotion to the whole Church. And in 1912, St. Pius X decreed that the feast will be celebrated on September 15.

Our Lady exemplifies for us the co-redemptive meaning of our own pains and sufferings. In that sequence, the Stabat Mater, which means Mary was standing, it says, “Oh sweet mother, fount 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.”

Our Lord wanted to associate his Mother with the work of redemption and make her a participant in his supreme sacrifice. As we celebrate the co-redemptive suffering of Our Lady today, the Church invites us to offer our many little difficulties and voluntary mortifications for the salvation of souls.

Through union with Our Lord’s work of redemption, Our Lady 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, offers up all her actions in intimate union with her Son. Their value therefore is virtually without limit.

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

The liturgy applies the words of the prophet Jeremiah to the sorrowful Virgin as to Christ himself. 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).

The anguish of Our Lady is greater on account of her eminent holiness. Her love for her Son allows her to endure his sufferings as though they were her own.

St. Alphonsus 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.

The more a person loves, the more he or she identifies with the pain of the beloved. 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. Christ’s agony is greatest in Gethsemane, on account of his profound sensitivity to the malice of sin. That night also meant untold moral suffering.

Sin is an offense against God, a wicked affront to his infinite holiness, and the cause of his passion. It’s much more serious than a mere transgression. Our Lady realized this more than any other creature.

On account of her own awareness of the enormous evil of sin, Our Lady was plunged in bitter grief on beholding its horrible consequences for her Son. One writer says, “Every one of us contributes in some way towards the increasing 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.”

Our Lord wanted to show us through Our Lady and St. Joseph, the creatures he most loved, the close relationship that 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 the Messiah is revealed with particular clarity.

We remember how Our Lady comes with Joseph to the temple to offer a sacrifice for a legal impurity which did not oblige her, and to entrust her Son to the Most High. In the immolation of her Son, Our Lady glimpses the grandeur of his final redemptive act.

God also wants to reveal to her the depth of his sacrifice to come and her own particular role in it.

Moved by the Holy Spirit, the just man Simeon tells Our Lady, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and the 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 to Our Lady clearly announced that her life will be intimately associated with the redemptive work of her Son. Pope St. John Paul comments: Simeon’s words seem like a second Annunciation to Mary, because they tell her of the historical circumstances in which the Son is to accomplish his mission, namely in misunderstanding and in 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.

Even though Our Lady had perhaps already moved into a modest home in Bethlehem with the child Jesus and Joseph, Our Lord does not spare his Mother the confusion of a precipitous flight into Egypt. She was probably happy in her life centered upon Jesus when called upon to gather the family’s modest belongings and undertake the hasty journey.

Neither does God spare her exile in a strange land, where she would have to begin family life anew.

Once established in Nazareth again, Our Lady is suddenly disconcerted over the disappearance of the 12-year-old Jesus, while she’s missing in Jerusalem for several days. We see again here how God permits Our Lady to undergo such unsettling trials. During Our Lord’s public ministry, Our Lady hears false rumors and calumnies regarding her Son.

She must surely be aware of the various plots of the Jews against Jesus. 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.

Our Lady meets her Son on the slope leading up to Calvary. Who can comprehend the agony engulfing Our Lady’s heart at this particular juncture? She stands there and sees how they nail him to the cross. Horrible insults and the prolonged torment of the crucifixion follow.

Again, the hymn Stabat Mater says, “Oh, how sad and sore distressed was that mother highly blessed, of the sole begotten one. Christ above in torment hangs, she beneath beholds the pangs of her dying glorious Son.”

As we consider the active role that our own sins play in the sorrow of our Mother, we can ask her today to help us to share in her suffering through profound contrition for all sin. Every day in our Mass, when we say those words, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy,” we could think for a moment of all the sins that have been committed all over the world. All the abortions, all the euthanasia, all the contraception, all the drunkenness, all the drugs. We have an awful lot to make up for.

With her help, we can be more generous in making reparation for our own offenses against God and all those offenses committed in the world every day.

Today’s feast is an occasion for us to accept all adversity that we encounter as personal purification and to co-redeem with Christ. Mary our Mother teaches us not to complain in the midst of trials as we know she never would. It’s interesting to think of the silence of Our Lady, the silence of Joseph.

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, the Church, and all humanity.

The suffering we have at hand to sanctify often consists in small daily reverses, extended periods of waiting, sudden changes of plans, projects that don’t turn out as we expected. All these are common examples. At times, the setbacks come in the form of reduced circumstances. Perhaps at a given moment, we might even lack necessities, such as a job to support our family.

But practicing the virtue of detachment well during such moments can be a great means for us to imitate and unite ourselves to Christ. Mary is there when her Son is stripped even of his tunic. She well knew the garment he wore, since she had sewn it with her own hands. With her as our model, we’ll find consolation and also the energy to strive forward with peace and serenity.

Sickness might also knock at our door. In such an event, we can ask for the grace to welcome the illness as a divine caress. We’ll give thanks for the gift of health that possibly we did not entirely appreciate before.

In whatever form sickness assails us, even if it should involve psychological disturbance, it can be the touchstone of our love for God, an occasion for renewing our confidence in him, and for growing more rapidly in the theological virtues.

We can grow in faith because we can learn to perceive the provident hand of our Father God at work, both in sickness and in health. Our hope can be strengthened since we entrust ourselves more into the Lord’s hands when we’re most in need.

Charity has a grand chance to grow too, because we can offer our situation with exemplary joy, because we realize that God permits it for our greater good.

The particular circumstances are frequently the most trying dimension of sickness. Perhaps its unexpected duration, our own helplessness, or the dependence on others it engenders is the most difficult part of all. Maybe the distress due to solitude or the impossibility of fulfilling our duties of state is most taxing. We might not be able to continue our works of apostolate. We might not be able to fulfill certain parts of our plan of life.

One writer says the mother of a family might be prevented from looking after her children. Any of these situations, or a combination of them, would go against our nature and would be hard to bear. But despite any such sufferings, after using all the necessary means for recovering our health, we must join the saints in saying, “Lord, I accept all of these circumstances, whatever you want, whenever, and however you so desire.”

In The Way, St. Josemaria says, we ask Jesus for an increase of love, and tell him slowly and with complete abandonment, as we have perhaps so often told him in a variety of situations, “Is this what you want, Lord? Then it’s what I want too.”

A mother always understands her children and consoles them in their troubles. Our Lady is our spiritual mother. When our responsibilities become too heavy for our limited strength, we can have recourse to her and implore from her her help and relief. She continues to be the loving consoler in the many physical and moral sufferings that afflict and torment humanity.

She knows our sorrows well because she suffered from the time of Bethlehem until Calvary.

Illness, when it is born for love of God, is a means of sanctification, of apostolate. It’s an excellent way of sharing in Christ’s redeeming cross. Physical suffering, which so frequently accompanies man’s life on earth, can be a means that God uses to purify our faults and imperfections, to exercise and strengthen our virtues. It can be a unique opportunity to unite ourselves to the sufferings of Christ, who although he was innocent, bore within himself the punishment merited for our sins.

One writer says, “But particularly in times of illness, we have to be close to Christ.” “Tell me, my friend,” the beloved asked, “will you be patient if I redouble your sufferings?” “Yes,” replied the friend, “as long as you redouble my capacity to love.”

The more painful the illness, the more love we will need. At the same time, we will receive more graces from God. Periods of illness are very special occasions that God allows so that we can co-redeem with him and purify ourselves from the stains of sin which remain in our souls.

If sickness comes, we have to try and learn to be good patients. First of all, we have to accept the illness. St. Francis de Sales says, we need to suffer patiently not only the burden of being ill, but of being ill with a particular illness that God wants for us, among the people that he wants us to be with, and with the discomforts that he permits us to experience. I say the same of all other tribulations.

We can ask God for help to bear our illness gracefully, whatever it is, trying not to complain, obeying the doctor. Because when we’re sick, we can get tiresome. We might think they’re not looking after me properly, or nobody cares about me, or I’m not getting the attention I deserve, or nobody understands me.

St. Josemaria says, “The devil, who is always on the lookout, can attack from any angle. When people are ill, his tactics consist in stirring up a kind of psychosis in them so as to draw them away from God and fill the atmosphere with bitterness, or destroy that treasure of merits earned on behalf of souls everywhere by pain. That is when it’s born with supernatural optimism when it is loved.”

Therefore, if God wills that we be struck down by some affliction, take it as a sign that he considers us mature enough to be associated even more closely with his redeeming cross.

The person who suffers united to Our Lord completes with his suffering what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. We’re told in the liturgy, “The sufferings of Christ created the good of the world’s redemption. This good in itself is inexhaustible and infinite. No man can add anything to it. But at the same time, in the mystery of the Church as his body, Christ has in a sense opened his own redemptive suffering to all human suffering.”

With Christ, sickness and illness attain their full meaning. Grant, Lord, that your faithful may become partakers in your passion through their sufferings in this life, so that the fruits of your salvation may be made manifest in them.

We’re told in St. Luke that when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases, brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them (cf. Luke 4:40).

St. Mark says the sick were so numerous that the whole city was gathered together about the door (cf. Mark 1:33). They brought the sick when the sun was setting. Why not earlier? Because that day was the Sabbath. After sunset, a new day began, and the obligation to observe the Sabbath rest ceased. It was an obligation that pious Jews practiced faithfully.

St. Luke’s Gospel has recorded for us this holy detail about Christ, that he cured them laying his hands on every one of them. Jesus pays great attention to each one of the sick and gives him the whole of his attention because each person, and particularly a person who is suffering, is very important to him. Every single one is always welcomed by Jesus, who has a compassionate and merciful heart towards everybody, without exception, especially for those who are most in need.

Our Lord characterizes his presence among us by preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity. That’s why the throng wondered when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they glorified the God of Israel, we are told in St. Matthew (cf. Matt. 15:31). In his messianic activity in the midst of Israel, Christ drew increasingly closer to the world of human suffering. He went about doing good. His actions concerned primarily those who were suffering and seeking help. We’re told he healed the sick and consoled the afflicted, fed the hungry, freed people from deafness, from blindness, from leprosy, from the devil, and from various physical disabilities. Three times he restored the dead to life.

He was sensitive to every human suffering, whether of the body or of the soul. At the same time, he taught, and at the heart of his teaching, there are the eight beatitudes, which are addressed to people tried by various sufferings in the temporal life.

All these ideas from the document on human suffering of John Paul II.

We’re told in St. Luke, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). John Paul II says, “From Jesus on the cross, she has the specific mission, only and always, to love us in order to save us. Mary consoles us above all by pointing out to us Christ crucified and paradise.”

Oh consoling Mother, comfort us all. Make us understand that the secret of happiness lies in goodness and in always faithfully following your Son Jesus. He always knows the best way for each of us, for each one of us to follow him.

Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

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, St. 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.

EW