The Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Thus the violence of sorrow has cut through your heart, and we rightly call you more than martyr…St. Bernard, Abbot

As we join our prayers today with Our Lady of Sorrows, we realize what a great price was paid that we might live. We join our hearts to our Blessed Mother’s and we look upon the Crucified One. We pray that he would make us new, purify our hearts, and give us the will and desire not to stray from his love.

Fittingly, the Memorial of our Lady of Sorrows falls on a Friday this year. Thus, we recall that on a Friday afternoon long ago our Lord gave his life for us; we recall that he presented his mother to the beloved disciple, and in doing so he gave her to us too. We recall that her heart was pierced with sorrow beyond comparison. We join our prayer and penance in the spirit of her sorrows—it was for our sins that he was wounded.

For anyone who has ever suffered a loss, anyone who has ever felt the pain of sorrow, any untimely death when a loved one was taken early, today is a special day to remember that we are not alone. Love is never far away. The image of the sorrowful mother has the power, in a way that transcends ordinary reasoning, to attract us to that which can heal us.

St. Bernard writes in today’s Office of Readings, “Let him be surprised who does not remember the words of Paul, that one of the greatest crimes of the Gentiles was that they were without love. That was far from the heart of Mary; let it be far from the hearts of her servants." It is love that heals the heart, and love that makes the heart new. It is love that gives the heart the will to pray, "keep my spirit always close to yours; let our hearts now be as one for ever and ever."

In many of the readings over the past weeks the central message has revealed something to us about the heart. What comes out of the heart is what matters; the heart is what has the power to make us pure, or to show us our unholiness. Thus, the heart is both the messenger of grace and the indicator of our need for it.

Today we focus on the sorrow that a heart can feel when it is a heart of love's own making, that is, when it is a heart given to us from God. Today we can participate with Mary standing by the cross; today we remember Jesus' passion and what it brought to us. By the power of his passion may he heal the sorrows of our world: may he reconcile our souls to himself, and may he reconcile our sorrowful divisions. Let us stand near our Lady in her prayers, for they are prayers for us all.

Comments

[Honora]

Surely it was her first time to Golgotha in an execution.. I've often thought that as Mary stood with her Son, she interceded already. Her eyes could not have failed to take in both Dismas and Gestas, and she'd have had pity on them. Gestas clung to his anger. I think Dismas, however, looked at Mary, and that she nodded, and Dismas let go and let God.

[Gabrielle]

Thank you for this truly beautiful reflection, deacon dan. The model of Mary's strength in overwhelming grief helps us so much during the hard times.