Our Lady of Sorrow - 15 September 2021 - John 19:25-27

       We ascribe different names and different attributes to Mary, attesting to her importance in our faith and in the history of salvation.  In our liturgies these last couple of months, we celebrated Our Lady of Knock, the Assumption of Mary, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the Nativity of Mary, just to name a few.  

    The memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows that we observe today is a blending of two feasts. In the early 13th century, an altar in honor of the Sorrowful Mother was erected in a monastery in Germany. The devotion spread in the surrounding area and in other countries. By the early 18th century, this feast was celebrated the Friday before Holy Week. 

     Also, starting in the 13th century, the Servite order commemorated a feast day that reflected upon the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  These seven sorrows of Mary include: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, the loss of Jesus in the Temple, Mary meeting Jesus on the way to Golgotha, Jesus’ death on the cross, Jesus taken down from the cross, and Jesus’ burial.  In the early 19th century, this feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary was celebrated in September.  During the reforms after the Second Vatican Council, these two feasts were combined into the Memorial we celebrate today on September 15.  

       In John’s Gospel today, Mary stands by her son while he was on the cross when many of his other followers and disciples abandoned him. We cannot begin to imagine the sorrow that Mary felt in her heart as she accompanied him on his journey to the cross.  This fulfills the prediction Simeon made about a sword piercing Mary's heart.

         St. Ambrose and many of the early Church Fathers saw Mary as a sorrowful yet powerful figure as she stood by Jesus courageously during his sufferings on his journey. Jesus’ wounds touched Mary’s heart, yet in those wounds, Mary saw the salvation of our world.  In that moment at the cross, Mary was given to us as our Mother and the Mother of the Church. As I think of Mary as Our Lady of the Sorrows, I think of the many mothers and grandmothers who have lost children and grandchildren; their love and their sorrows are united with Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows.  May we never fail to reach out to our Blessed Mother in our struggles and in our sorrow – may we gain strength in our faith from our relationship with her.