Our Lady Of Sorrows

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 ·
John 19:25-27

We can never love Mary more than Jesus because Mary’s YES to God’s plan of salvation, through her beloved Son was from the beginning to the end. From Bethlehem to Calvary. From the crib to the Cross. The memorial we celebrate today goes back into the gospel. Mary was standing at the foot of the cross. A sign of faithfulness and confidence in whatever God has in store for her. she shared in the mystery of the Lord’s passion.

Mary’s heart was pierced.   Showing us, that if we focus too much on the harsher moments of what might lie ahead, we can lose sight of every gift of God in our path.  We can lose sight of all we are called to do, to be, of Christ in these times.  In ways only possible when we trust in His promises.  He promised He would be there.  He promised you would be ours.  Mary’s fiat.  Continuing through time.    With her closeness with God, she did not lose sight of the One entrusted to her care, spilling her heart open to all suffering. Opening the room for Grace to pour forth in Spirit.  Showing us Love comes in all forms.   Some more painful than others.  Yet all leading to the Way.

St. Anselm opined that; While other martyrs suffered by sacrificing their own lives, the Blessed Virgin suffered by sacrificing her Son’s life, a Life that she loved far more than her own; so that she not only suffered in her soul all that her Son endured in His Body but moreover, the sight of her Son’s torments, brought more grief to her heart, than if she had endured them all in her person”. This is a great mystery beyond all telling.

More so, St. John Paul II speaking on Our Lady of Sorrows urges us to make a sincere devotion to her saying ;
“Turn your eyes incessantly to the Blessed Virgin; she, who is the Mother of Sorrows and also the Mother of Consolation, can understand you completely and help you. Looking to her, praying to her, you will obtain that your tedium will become serenity, your anguish change into hope, and your grief into love.

Take Mary into thy lives is the key to Peace because she totally surrendered everything to God. Let us offer our prayers, sufferings and supplication without complaint in honor of such great a mother.

O mother of sorrow, who are the smile of God, the reflection of the light of Christ, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sacred vessel of Honour smile upon us and pray for us now and at that hour of our death. Amen.

Stabat Mater
At the cross her station keeping.
Stood the mournful mother weeping
Close to Jesus to the last.

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
She beheld her tender Child,
All with bloody scourges rent.

Fr. Joseph