The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Luke 2:33-35

Jesus’ father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Devotion to the suffering Virgin Mary developed in the Middle Ages, and various local feasts and devotions sprung up to commemorate this.  Finally, by a decree issued in 1727 Pope Benedict XIII ordered the Feast of 0The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary” to be celebrated throughout the Church.  The name of the feast was shortened to “Our Lady of Sorrows” in the calendar as reformed after the Second Vatican Council.  The Seven Sorrows are: The prophecy uttered by Simeon at the time the Infant Lord was presented in the Temple; the Flight into Egypt; the losing of the Child Jesus in the Temple; the meeting of the Blessed Virgin and Jesus as he carried his Cross; the Crucifixion; the Lord’s Body taken down from the Cross; and the burial of the Lord’s Body.

The Book of Lamentations can be read as a commentary on the sorrow of the Blessed Virgin at the Death of her Son.  Consider the following verses: “Weeping, she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her: all her friends have despised her, and are become her enemies” (Lamentations 1, 2).  “O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow” (Lamentations 1, 12).  Psalm 79, as well: “O God, the heathen have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins” (Psalm 79, 1).  These writings describe the grief and mourning that attended the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Babylonians in 597 B.C.  Spiritually, we can understand the Lord Jesus as the City and the Temple spoken of in these texts.  Jerusalem was though of as God’s own city, and the Temple as his dwelling place.  It seemed incomprehensible to the people that he had allowed them to be destroyed.  The catastrophe was so complete that it even seemed that God had led the charge against the city walls.  Likewise, the Lord’s persecution during his life, and then the mad hatred of the Jewish leaders for him and their delivering him to Pilate seem excessive, and his agonizing Death utter destruction (Wisdom 3, 3).  

Thinking over our sins, we grieve what they cost the Son of God and his Blessed Mother.  We grieve with her for his Death, and yet we are apart from her because our sins caused his Death and so her grief.  Let us mourn our sinfulness and resolve to live holy lives with the help the the Virgin’s intercession.