Our Lady of Sorrows

The purpose of this feastday is to remind the faithful of the great sorrows suffered by Our Lady, whose love for Jesus as her Lord and God, and also as the son she bore within her womb for nine months, has no equal in the whole of history.

The seven events recalled on this feastday are :

1. The prophecy of Simeon ("and your own soul a sword shall pierce")
2. The flight into Egypt ( to escape Jesus being killed by Herod, and thus being one of the Holy Innocents.)
3. The three days loss of Jesus (the prelude to the Fifth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary - the Finding in the Temple.)
4. Meeting Jesus on His way to Calvary, bloodied and torn (Now also remembered as the Fourth Station on the Way of the Cross)
5. Mary at the foot of the Cross. (Can you possibly imagine the sorrow and anguish in the heart of any mother, seeing her Son being nailed to a Cross and swung aloft?)
6. Jesus being taken down from the Cross (so beautifully preserved in Michelangelo's famous sculpture "The Pieta" in St Peter's Basilica in Rome.)
7. The burial of Jesus (Knowing that He would be resurrected , but also knowing that she had to wait until the third day - what an agony of waiting!)