Our Lady of Sorrows

Hail Mary, full of sorrows, the Crucified is with thee; tearful art thou amongst women, and tearful is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of the Crucified, give tears to us, Crucifiers of thy Son, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Virgin most afflicted, how ungrateful have I been in the past to my God, in return for all His benefits. Now, I repent in bitterness of heart, humbly asking pardon for the offence done to His infinite goodness, and resolved by the help of heavenly grace to offend Him no more. Ah! by all the pains which thou didst suffer in the cruel Passion of thy dear Jesus, I pray thee, with fervent sighs, to obtain for me pardon and mercy for all my grievous sins. Obtain that the same sword which pierced thy soul may pierce mine also, that I may live and die in the love of my Lord, and share eternally in that glory, which He has purchased for me with His most Precious Blood. Amen.

Holy Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Martyrs, I do this day choose thee as my model, protectress, and advocate. In thy Immaculate Heart, pierced with so many swords of sorrow, I place my poor soul forever. Receive me as thy especial servant as a partaker in thy sufferings. Give me strength always to remain close to that Cross on which thy only Son died for me. All that I am and have, I consecrate to thy service. Accept every good work that I may perform and offer it to thy Son for me. Dear Mother, help me to be worthy of the title: "Servant of Mary." Stand by me in all my actions that they may be directed to the glory of God. As thou wert close to Christ, thy Son, on the cross, be near to me, thy child, in my last agony. Obtain for me, that I may invoke thine and His sweet Name saying with my lips and my heart: "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may I die in peace in your holy company."

(From the booklet Novena in Honor of Our Sorrowful Mother Compiled from Approved Sources)

Prayers in Honor of the Seven Dolors (Sorrows) of the Blessed Virgin Mary Approved by Pope Pius VII in 1815

V: O God, come to my assistance; R: O Lord, make haste to help me V: Glory be to the Father..... R: As it was in the beginning....

1. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the affliction of your tender heart at the prophecy of the holy and aged Simeon. Dear Mother, by your heart so afflicted, obtain for me the virtue of humility and the gift of the holy fear of God.

2. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the anguish of your most affectionate heart during the flight into Egypt and your sojourn there. Dear Mother, by your heart so troubled, obtain for me the virtue of generosity, especially toward the poor, and the gift of piety.

3. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in those anxieties which tried your troubled heart at the lost of your dear Jesus. Dear Mother, by your heart so full of anguish, obtain for me the virtue of chastity and the gift of knowledge.

4. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the consternation of your heart at meeting Jesus as He carried His cross. Dear Mother, by your heart so troubled, obtain for me the virtue of patience and the gift of fortitude.

5. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the martyrdom which your generous heart endured in standing near Jesus in His agony. Dear Mother, by your afflicted heart, obtain for me the virtue of temperance and the gift of counsel.

6. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the wounding of your compassionate heart, when the side of Jesus was struck by the lance before His Body was removed from the cross. Dear Mother, by your heart thus transfixed, obtain for me the virtue of fraternal charity and the gift of understanding.

7. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, for the pangs that wrenched your most loving heart at the burial of Jesus. Dear Mother, by your heart sunk in the bitterness of desolation, obtain for me the virtue of diligence and the gift of wisdom.

Let intercession be made for us, we beseech You, O Lord Jesus Christ, now and at the Hour of our death, before the throne of Your mercy, by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Your Mother, whose most holy soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow in the hour of Your bitter Passion. Through You, O Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world, Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost lives and reigns world without end. Amen.

According to St. Alphonsus Liguori, Our Lord revealed to St. Elizabeth of Hungary four special graces that are given to those who are devoted to the dolors of His holy Mother.

1. That those who before death invoke the Blessed Mother in the name of her sorrows, should obtain true repentance of all their sins.

2. That He would protect in their tribulations all who remember this devotion, and that He would protect them especially at the hour of death.

3. That He would impress upon their minds the remembrance of His Passion, and that they should have their reward for it in Heaven.

4. That He would commit such devout clients to the hands of Mary, so that she might obtain for these souls all the graces she wanted to lavish upon them.

According to St. Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), the Blessed Virgin grants seven graces to the souls who honor her daily by saying seven Hail Marys while meditating on her tears and dolors:

3. "I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work."

4. "I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my Divine Son or the sanctification of their souls."

5. "I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives."

6. "I will visibly help them at the moment of their death -- they will see the face of their mother."

7. "I have obtained this grace from my divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness, since all their sins will be forgiven and my Son will be their eternal consolation and joy."

This Chaplet was revealed in 1929 and 1930 to the saintly Sister Amalia in Campinas (Brazil) by Our Saviour and His Most Holy Mother. The local bishop Franciscus Graf Campos Barreto confirmed it as a supernatural revelation. In a very consoling voice, Our Lord said to Sister Amalia on 8th November, 1929: "MY DAUGHTER, WHATEVER MEN WILL ASK OF ME FOR THE SAKE OF THE TEARS OF MY MOTHER, I SHALL GRANT THEM LOVINGLY." And on 8th March, 1930, Our Most Holy Mother explained to Amalia: "THE DEVIL WILL BE DEFEATED BY THIS CHAPLET, AND THE REIGN OF HELL BE DESTROYED. PREPARE FOR THIS GREAT BATTLE."

(This can be said on a "Servite Rosary" or "Seven Sorrows of Mary Rosary" consisting of 7 sets of 7 beads)

"Crucified Jesus! Prostrate at Your feet, we offer You the tears of Her, Who with intimate, sympathetic love accompanied You on Your painful Way of the Cross. Grant, O good Master, that we take to heart the lessons which the tears of Your Most Holy Mother afford us, so that we may thus fulfill Your Holy Will on earth that we may become worthy to laud and bless You in Heaven for all Eternity. Amen."

"O Jesus! Look upon the tears of Her, Who loved You most while on earth and Who loves You most intimately in Heaven."

"O Jesus! Hear our petitions for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother."

Repeat the steps until you have done all 7 Sorrows of Mary (1st Sorrow, Seven small rules; 2nd Sorrow, 7 small rules, etc.)

"O Jesus! Look upon the tears of Her, Who loved You most while on earth and Who loves You most intimately in Heaven."

"O Mary, Mother of Love, of Sorrows, and of Mercy! We beg You, join Your prayers with ours, so that Jesus, Your Divine Son, to Whom we turn, will graciously hear our petitions in the name of Your maternal tears, and together with the graces we implore, grant us finally the reward of eternal life. Amen."

1. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed during SIMEON'S PROPHECY that a sword will pierce Her Heart, grant us strength that even in our dark hours, we may remain firm in our Faith and loyal in our love for You.

2. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed during HER FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, have mercy on all the homeless, refugees, and all those persecuted for the Faith.

3. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed during HER SEARCH FOR YOU, have mercy on those souls who have lost You and grant that they will find You again through the Faith left in the temple of their hearts.

4. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed when You met Her during YOUR PAINFUL WAY OF THE CROSS, grant us help when we are afflicted by illness and tribulations, and show all those who err in Faith or do not believe, that You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

5. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed during YOUR AGONY ON THE CROSS, grant all those dying Your last Graces that are needed for their salvation, and may we accept our death with love, from Your Hand, the death that You have destined for us.

6. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed when YOUR SACRED BODY WAS TAKEN FROM THE CROSS and placed into Her arms, have mercy on all those who suffer, and grant them the knowledge that God will not send them afflictions beyond their strength.

7. O Jesus, for the sake of the tears of Your Most Holy Mother shed when YOU WERE PLACED IN THE SEPULCHRE, grant us strength, so that we may overcome our fear of death through our hope of a blessed resurrection in You.

May the Holy Cross be to you light and health, the benediction and the Will of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Cardinal Mahony's crimes will probably all be swept under the rug - and those brave priests who come forward with evidence will be burned - just like Father Haley.
Here's an update on the Father Haley case (sent to me by a friend):
What is happening with the Father Haley case in the Arlington, Virginia, diocese that has been going on for three years?

This is a priest who provided evidence requested by Arlington Diocese (VA) Bishop Paul Loverde of priests' infidelity, adultery, pornography, homosexual misdeeds, thievery from collections totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars, etc.

But Father Haley, not those responsible for the misdeeds he reported, was hosed down by Bishop Loverde and the facts of the case since kept secret by the church. What is the reason, and what's going on?

The Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (Cardinal Ratzinger) more than a year ago named Bishop Timothy Doran, bishop of Rockford, Illinois, as its "impartial" adjudicator. But as of today, I'm told Father Haley has not yet been given a list of charges against him by Bishop Loverde; has been denied the right to say mass since 2001, even for his own ailing father who has Alzheimer's; and offending priests named by Father Haley and evidence provided to Bishop Loverde, have been protected (except Father Verrecchia, forced out of the priesthood by making pregnant his parishioner), moved to parishes unaware of crimes attributed to them.

So again, what is going on?

I'm told Bishop Loverde, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., and others (the Vatican?) are going out of their way to contain this situation and to prevent the Haley case from being adjudicated fully through a canonical judicial process, and to prevent news coverage. Is this true?

If Bishop Doran gets this message, please respond. Have you bottled up the Father Haley case to prevent him from airing his complaint about homosexuals in the priesthood, and if so, why?

To Cardinal McCarrick: Why have you tried to pressure editors of powerful newspapers to take good newspaper reporters off the story who have reported accurately?
What are you trying to continue to hide, Cardinal, and why?

Please tell us, Cardinal. Also Bishop Loverde. Why have you hidden behind church bureaucratic rules in the face of evidence of sexual and financial wrongdoing by priests, provided by fellow priests and lay people?

All receiving this message, please send any first-hand important information about the Haley case to Julia Duin at The Washington Times, jduin@washingtontimes.com. Please do not send rumors or unvalidated information.

Thank you.

W-FF

Our Lady of Sorrows
Memorial
September 15th

Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows
Adriaen Isenbrant
1518-35
Panel
O.L. Vrouwekerk, Bruges

Stabat Mater Dolorosa - Sequence Hymn
History of the Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows
The seven founders of the Servite Order, in 1239, five years after they established themselves on Monte Senario, took up the sorrows of Mary, standing under the Cross, as the principal devotion of their order. The feast originate by a provincial synod of Cologne (1413) to expiate the crimes of the iconoclast Hussites; it was to be kept on the Friday after the third Sunday after Easter under the title: "Commemoratio angustix et doloris B. Marix V". Its object was exclusively the sorrow of Mary during the Crucifixion and Death of Christ. Before the sixteenth century this feast was limited to the dioceses of North Germany, Scandinavia, and Scotland. Being termed "Compassio" or "Transfixio", Commendatio, Lamentatio B.M.V.", it was kept at a great variety of dates, mostly during Eastertide or shortly after Pentecost, or on some fixed day of a month. Dreves and Blume (Analecta hymnica) have published a large number of rhythmical offices, sequences and hymns for the feast of the Compassion, which show that from the end of the fifteenth century in several dioceses the scope of this feast was widened to commemorate either five dolours (sorrows), from the imprisonment to the burial of Christ, or seven dolours, extending over the entire life of Mary.
Towards the end of the end of the sixteenth century the feast spread over part of the south of Europe; in 1506 it was granted to the nuns of the Annunciation under the title "Spasmi B.M.V.", Monday after Passion Sunday; in 1600 to the Servite nuns of Valencia, "B.M.V. sub pede Crucis", Friday before Palm Sunday. After 1600 it became popular in France and was termed "Dominx N. de Pietate", Friday before Palm Sunday. To this latter date the feast was assigned for the whole German Empire (1674). By a Decree of April 22, 1727, Benedict XIII extended it to the entire Latin Church, under the title "Septem dolorum B.M.V.", although the Office and Mass retain the original character of the feast, the Compassion of Mary at the foot of the Cross. At both Mass and Office the "Stabat Mater" of Giacopone da Todi (1306) is sung (see words in Latin and English below).

A second feast was granted to the Servites, June 9 and September 15, 1668. Its object of the seven dolours of Mary (according to the responsories of Matins).

The sorrows:
* at the prophecy of Simeon;
* at the flight into Egypt;
* having lost the Holy Child at Jerusalem;
* meeting Jesus on his way to Calvary;
* standing at the foot of the Cross;
* Jesus being taken from the Cross;
* at the burial of Christ.
This feast was extended to Spain (1735); to Tuscany (1807). After his return from his exile in France Pius VII extended the feast to the Latin Church (September 18, 1814). A feast, "B.M.V. de pietate", with a beautiful medieval office, is kept in honor of the sorrowful mother at Goa in India and Braga in Portugal, on the third Sunday of October; in the ecclesiastical province of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, last Sunday of May, etc. A special form of devotion is practiced in Spanish-speaking countries under the term of "N.S. de la Soledad", to commemorate the solitude of Mary on Holy Saturday. Its origin goes back to Queen Juana, lamenting the early death of her husband Philip I, King of Spain (1506).
(Principal source - Catholic Encyclopedia - 1913 edition)

Collect:
Father,
as Your Son was raised on the cross,
His mother Mary stood by Him, sharing His sufferings.
May Your Church be united with Christ
in His suffering and death
and so come to share in His rising to new life,
where He lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading: Hebrews 5:7-9
In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard for His godly fear. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered; and being made perfect He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
Gospel Reading: John 19:25-27
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.
Alternative Gospel Reading: Luke 2:33-35
Jesus' father and mother marveled at what was said about Him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."

Mater Dolorosa - Sorrowing Mother
Rogier van der Weyden - Deposition (detail) -- c. 1435 (Oil on oak panel)
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Stabat Mater Dolorósa
Sequence Hymn

Latin

Stabat Mater dolorósa
iuxta crucem lacrimósa,
dum pendébat Fílius.

Cuius ánimam geméntem,
contristátam et doléntem
pertransívit gládius.

O quam tristis et afflícta
fuit illa benedícta,
mater Unigéniti!

Quæ mærébat et dolébat,
pia Mater, dum vidébat
Nati poenas íncliti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si vidéret
tanto supplício?

Quis non posset contristári,
piam Matrem contemplári
doléntem cum Fílio?

Pro peccátis suæ gentis
vidit lesum in torméntis,
et flagéllis súbditum.

Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriéndo desolátum,
dum emísit spíritum.

Eia, Mater, fons amóris
me sentíre vim dolóris fac,
ut tecum lúgeam.

Fac ut árdeat cor meum
in amándo Christum Deum,
ut sibi compláceam.

Sancta Mater, istud agas,
Crucifíxi fige plagas
cordi meo válide.

Tui Nati vulneráti,
tam dignáti pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.

Fac me tecum pie flere,
Crucifíxo condolére,
donec ego víxero.

Iuxta crucem tecum stare,
ac me tibi sociáre
in planctu desídero.

Virgo vírginum præclára,
mihi iam non sis amára,
fac me tecum plángere.

Fac ut portem Christi mortem,
passiónis fac me sortem,
et plagas recólere.

Fac me plagis vulnerári,
cruce hac inebriári,
et cruóre Filii.

Flammis urar succénsus,
per te, Virgo, sim defénsus
in die iudícii.

Fac me cruce custodíri,
morte Christi præmuníri,
confovéri grátia.

Quando corpus moriétur,
fac ut ánimæ donétur
Paradísi glória.

English
At the cross her station keeping
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing
now at lenght the sword had passed.

Oh, how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother highly blessed,
of the sole-begotten One!
Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying, glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
'whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
she beheld her tender Child
All with scourges rent.

For the sins of His own nation,
saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

O sweet Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord.

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ, my Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified.

Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all our sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live.

By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;

Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;

While my body here decays,
may my soul Thy goodness praise,
safe in paradise with Thee. Amen.

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