Mother of Sorrows, 2004
Refugee mother from Darfur in Mahmata, Chad
Lolín Menéndez rscj/JRS  | The devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows has its roots in the Prophecy of Simeon: “a sword will pierce your very soul” (Lk. 2:35). It is celebrated as a feast on September 15, perhaps to make a close link with the feast of Triumph of the Holy Cross (September 14). After celebration of the triumph of Christ on the cross, the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows invites us to contemplate the human side of Christ’s sufferings in union with Mary. The devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows was very dear to Saint Madeleine Sophie. The presence of a small image of Our Lady of Sorrows at the Villa Lante (in Rome) was instrumental in persuading Mother Barat to purchase the Villa in 1837. Before this picture, Mother Barat consecrated the Society to Our Lady of Sorrows in 1839, at a moment of painful internal division in the Society. An excerpt from this Consecration highlights Mother Barat’s solid devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as well as her respect for Mary as a model of faith: Make us worthy of Him by teaching us to imitate the virtues of thy heart so faithfully modeled on His. Give us, above all, lively faith, true humility, and courage, which will help us to rise above sorrow and to stand with thee, calm and steadfast at the foot of the cross… May we bear about in ourselves the Cross of Christ, the sufferings of His Passion, and the remembrances of His wounds. This feast, sometimes referred to as “The Compassion of Mary” fits well the Society’s commitment to live out our devotion to the Sacred Heart in the widest possible manner, including, as Mother Barat obviously intended, the exercise of compassion as a kind of prayer which identifies us with the wounded heart of humanity. (Adapted from the Liturgical Calendar of the Society of the Sacred Heart, 1988) Homily for the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows Founders Chapel, University of San Diego
September 15, 2003 The readings for today’s liturgy describe Mary, Miriam of Nazareth, in the time of her deepest heart-suffering, during the passion and death of Jesus. How can we enter into the dispositions of her heart? What stands out is that she was a woman of compassion. According to the private revelations claimed by the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a nineteenth-century German mystic, Mary asked to be led by Mary Magdalene and John the beloved “back over the whole way of suffering trodden by her Divine Son since His arrest the preceding evening . . . On many places where Jesus had suffered outrage and injury, they paused in heartfelt grief and compassion, and wherever He had fallen to the ground,” Mary fell on her knees and kissed the earth.”1 Who is suffering outrage and injury in our world today? How are we pausing in heartfelt grief and compassion with Jesus in his ongoing paschal mystery? A woman of compassion. Notice that Mary begged Mary Magdalene, a renowned reformed sinner, to make this way of the cross with her. How do we reach out to the most seemingly oppressed and perhaps depressed among us? Do we dare come close to those we find it hardest to love, especially when they are being particularly annoying and needy for our attention? A woman of compassion. Mary entered into the sheer horror and humiliation of Jesus at this time just as much as she had entered into his triumphant march the Sunday before and the many miracles which he had worked. She set no boundaries for living in compassion with him: his joys and sorrows were her own as his mother and as his disciple. With whom do we live in compassion? Whose joys and sorrows do we make our own? This past summer I read a book called The Voice of Silence, which is the autobiography of Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo who was Princess Diana’s spiritual guide. Shanley wrote that she and Diana were “united in a common search for truth. For both of us, the goal was the healing of and caring for humanity, especially mothers and babies. It was a spiritual quest- a destiny.”2 They were both women of compassion. She quotes a letter written to her by Princess Diana in 1992: “I have an enormous amount inside me that I want to share with those who suffer or those who require light in their dark existences. The power comes from within and having responsibility gives us the power to make changes in our lives ? Maybe it is time!” (Shanley 190). Mary could surely have written these words. How can we help one another live them? How can we let all the sorrows of our hearts be transformed into compassion for others, perhaps mothers and babies, perhaps parents and their adult children, perhaps administrators, teachers, and/or staff, perhaps victims of scandals in our church, perhaps the elderly in our care or the sick in hospitals? In this Eucharist, let us beg for the grace of compassion and let light be shed on how we are to radiate it, and to whom. Annice Callahan, rscj
Province of the United States __________________________________________ 1. Anne Catherine Emmerich, The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations, ed. Carl E. Schmöger, trans. an American nun (Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Pub., 1986), Vol. 4, 189. 2. Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo, The Voice of Silence (Deerfield Beach, Fl.: Health Communications, Inc., 2002),188.
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