Today, 15 September, the Church keeps Our Lady of Sorrows — and the date is no accident. Yesterday was the Exaltation of the Cross. The Church sets the two feasts hard against each other on purpose: first the wood, then the one who stood beside it.
The seven sorrows
The devotion settled on seven moments, and the list is worth reading slowly, because only two of them are Calvary:
- I — The prophecy of Simeon (Lk 2:34-35). Spoken in the Temple, over a forty-day-old baby: “a sword will pierce your own soul too”.
- II — The flight into Egypt (Mt 2:13-14). Leaving by night, with a newborn, for a foreign country.
- III — The loss of the Child in the Temple (Lk 2:43-45). Three days not knowing where he is.
- IV — The meeting on the road to Calvary. She sees what they have made of him.
- V — The crucifixion. Saint John records that they stood by the cross (Jn 19:25).
- VI — The body taken down into her arms.
- VII — The burial. The stone rolled across, and then a whole day of nothing.
Notice what the list does: it spreads the grief across a whole life rather than concentrating it in one afternoon. That is why it is recognisable — most people carry the seventh sorrow, the waiting with no news, far more often than the fifth.
Where the feast comes from
The devotion is medieval and was born with the Order of the Servants of Mary — the Servites, founded at Florence in 1233. It was they who composed the chaplet of the Seven Sorrows: seven groups of seven Hail Marys, one for each sorrow.
For centuries there were two celebrations: one on the Friday before Palm Sunday and one in September. In 1913 Saint Pius X fixed the September one on the 15th, tied to the Cross of the day before; and in 1969 the reform of the calendar removed the Lenten one from the General Calendar as a duplicate.
In the traditional sequence of monthly devotions, September is the month of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady — as October belongs to the Rosary and May to Mary in general.
It is not a precept, it is a custom; and it is a custom kept with very little: one sorrow a week through the month is enough to arrive at the 15th knowing what is being commemorated.
«Stabat» — the first verb
The hymn Stabat Mater, of the thirteenth century and ascribed to Jacopone da Todi, is sung at this memorial. The word it opens with is the one carrying everything: stabat — she was standing.
Not fainting, not led home by well-meaning relatives, not turned away. Standing, where everything could be seen. There is a difference between enduring a cross and standing beside one: the first is done to you; the second you choose.
Stabat Mater dolorósa iuxta crucem lacrimósa, dum pendébat Fílius. Cuius ánimam geméntem, contristátam et doléntem, pertransívit gládius.
At the cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, while her Son was hanging there. Through her soul, in anguish groaning, sorrowful and deeply moaning, went the sharp and piercing sword.
Amen.
“Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister.”— John 19:25
“And a sword will pierce through your own soul also.”— Luke 2:35
“On Calvary she offered the very Son she had brought forth at Bethlehem.”— ascribed to Saint Alphonsus Liguori
The prayer of the day
Deus, qui Fílio tuo in cruce exáltato compatiéntem Matrem astáre voluísti, da Ecclésiæ tuæ, ut, beátæ Vírginis cónsors in passióne effécta, Christi resurrectiónis partíceps esse mereátur.
O God, who willed that, when your Son was lifted high on the Cross, his Mother should stand close by and share his suffering, grant that your Church, participating with the Virgin Mary in the Passion of Christ, may merit a share in his Resurrection.
Amen.
Sancta Mater dolorosa, ora pro nobis. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us — and win us the grace to stand where we can change nothing.
- How to pray the Seven Sorrows Rosary — step by step, with a meditation for each sorrow.
- The Exaltation of the Holy Cross — yesterday’s feast, the 14th.
- The Nativity of Our Lady — the beginning, on the 8th.
- Words of the saints — a growing collection, in English and Portuguese.
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