September 15
Our Lady of Sorrows
Today's Gospel: John 19:25-27
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| Google AI cleaned up the statue in my picture. |
"But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”
Reflection:
September 15th.
The Church stops to look at a mother in pain. Along the Avenue of the Saints at
the Fatima Shrine, her statue stands quietly on the path, seven swords piercing
her heart, eyes lifted, hands folded. Her title is "Our Lady of
Sorrows" it goes back centuries, rooted in the Servite Order of the 1200s,
who built their whole spirituality around being with Mary at the foot of the
cross. By the 1800s, Pope Pius VII placed this feast on the universal calendar,
right after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. That was the plan all along; her
sorrow and His cross are intentionally stitched together.
This devotion
grew around seven specific wounds to her heart, drawn straight from Scripture. Each
one is a real moment in Mary’s life.
First Sorrow - The
Prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35). Mary brings baby Jesus to the temple, and an older man tells her a sword will pierce her soul. Jesus is only weeks old. She
already knows pain is coming.
Second Sorrow -
The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15). Herod wants the child dead. Mary and Joseph run
in the night, refugees carrying God. Safety was never guaranteed, even for the
Holy Family.
Third Sorrow -
The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41-50). Three days
searching for Jesus. Three days not knowing where He is. Any parent knows
that particular kind of terror.
Fourth Sorrow -
Mary Meets Jesus Carrying the Cross (Luke 23:27-29). She doesn't turn
away from the road to Calvary. She walks toward it, close enough to see His
face under the weight of the wood.
Fifth Sorrow - Mary
at the Foot of the Cross (John 19:25-30). She stands and watches Jesus suffer and die.
Mary did not collapse or leave; she remained present with Jesus all the way through.
Sixth Sorrow -
Mary Receives the Body of Jesus (Psalm 130). Jesus’s body comes down, and she holds
Him one more time. This is the moment the Pietà captures: grief with nowhere
left to go but her arms.
Seventh Sorrow -
The Burial of Jesus (Luke 23:50-56). They lay Jesus in the tomb, and she walks away
without Him. That's the sorrow that asks the most: waiting on a promise not yet
fulfilled.
Artists and hymn
writers leaned into this hard, the Stabat Mater, written in the 1200s. In today's
Gospel we read about the fifth sorrow itself. John 19:25-27. Mary at the foot
of the cross, watching her son die, and somehow still present enough to receive
a new son in John. Jesus doesn't waste that moment on comfort; He hands his
Mother a mission. "Woman, behold your son." Giving her to John. From
the worst hour of her life, she becomes mother to all of us. That's the whole
shape of her sorrow; it never ends in her; she always turns to us.
That's the part I
keep coming back to. Her pain didn't make her small. It made her someone others
could be handed to. When my own crosses get heavy, I think about that. She
didn't get answers at the cross. She got a task. Maybe that's what real faith
looks like on the worst days: not clarity, just staying, and letting the sorrow
turn into something given to someone else.
Something to sit
with: When your own sorrow feels pointless, who might God be quietly handing to
you in that same moment? Could your hardest hour be the one where someone else
needs you most?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely
shared.
