Seven Sorrows of Mary

Wednesday, September 15  

 John 19:25-27

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows was originally granted to the Order of the Servants of Mary in 1667. It was introduced into the Roman Calendar in 1814 and assigned to the third Sunday in September. In 1913 the date of the feast was assigned to September 15.

Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows of Mary
Pray one Hail Mary while meditating on each of the Seven Sorrows of Mary:

1. The prophecy of Simeon.
2. The flight into Egypt.
3. The loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple.
4. Mary meeting Jesus carrying His Cross.
5. The Crucifixion.
6. Mary receiving the Body of Jesus from the Cross.
7. The Body of Jesus being placed in the tomb.

Then pray three Hail Mary's in remembrance of the tears Mary shed because of the suffering of Her Divine Son. Concluding prayers: Pray for us, O Most Sorrowful Virgin, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Lord Jesus, we now implore, both for the present and for the hour of our death, the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Your Mother, whose Holy Soul was pierced during Your Passion by a sword of grief. Grant us this favor, O Savior of the world, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. 

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Father von Balthasar (+ 1988)

The Sorrowful Mother

In the Crucified One the soul that dies is divided from the spirit of mission which is breathed out with bowed head and given up to the Father and to the Church: in the Mother who shares his suffering, whose "soul magnifies the Lord" and whose "spirit rejoices in God my Saviour" (Lk 1: 46-47), the sword pierces between praise and rejoicing: the rejoicing is borne away with the spirit to God, while the soul remains behind and, when the body is taken down from the cross, can only utter the assent of praise with a sigh in the most profound darkness, in the utmost weakness.

It is here and nowhere else that sinners - whether oppressors or the weeping oppressed - can find refuge. As Claudel has written:

"For the poor man there is no firm friend unless he finds someone poorer than himself.

So come, my oppressed sister, and behold Mary ... Behold her who is there, without complaint as without hope, like a poor man who has found someone poorer, and both contemplate each other in silence."    

It is the greater suffering that hides and thereby consoles: not with soothing words, not with promises that things will get better, but simply because the more profound pain as such goes on giving praise and only now does so adequately, just as from a broken jar of ointment comes a stronger aroma.

It remains an impenetrable mystery how this temporal precipitous distress of a Mother shares in and is involved in the eternal praise of her transfiguration.

Her heart remains as open as that of her Son, who is continually offering his heart's blood in the Eucharistic meal: "My blood is drink indeed, and he who does not drink it has no life in him." One should not place far from that of her Son the Mother's heart pierced by the sword, the heart that offers itself to all the poor as one yet poorer, even if its openness is only to be understood as pointing to the eternal openness of his heart to the Father. "I am the door," he says; she only says: "I am the hand maid, do what­ever he tells you."