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| Our Lady of Sorrows |
Angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her: blessed are
you among women. Leonardo Da Vinci has brilliantly captured that moment in this
painting. Mary gets a foretaste of her
blessedness in the prophecy of Simeon in the temple: a sword shall pierce through thy own soul.
Today the 15th
of September, the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Welcome
to the Saint of the Day.
The title of Our Lady of Sorrows, given to Mary, not only
focuses on the intense suffering and grief during the passion and death of our
Lord, but also the moments of anguish and distress she felt, throughout her
life.
The sword that will pierce her soul was not a single sword,
but seven swords. That is why she is represented in Christian art with a heart
through which seven swords penetrate through.
These seven sorrows of
our Blessed Mother included the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt; this was
not a merry picnic. Joseph and Mary had to travel a distance of three hundred
and twenty kilometers through a rugged terrain in a hostile climate, under the
shadow of death. The loss and finding of the child Jesus in the Temple; they
had travelled without Jesus a day’s journey. Mary's meeting of Jesus on His way
to Calvary; this meant that her son was being taken to the site of execution as
a criminal. Mary's standing at the foot of the cross when our Lord was
crucified; no mother can stand the site of her son being butchered. Her holding
of Jesus when He was taken down from the cross; It was a benumbing experience
to receive the cold and blood smeared body of her son. Then Jesus’ burial in a
hurry with only a limited number of friends, all traumatized by the finale of
Jesus’ earthly life.
However, the dignity
and courage with which she received the seven swords was the testing ground of
the fiat, let it be done unto me according to thy word, first articulated at
the moment of annunciation.
The feast became
popular in the fourteenth and fifteenth century throughout the Christendom. In
1668 the feast in honor of the Seven Dolores was set for the Sunday after
September 14, the Feast of the Holy Cross. The feast was inserted into the
Roman calendar in 1814, and Pope Pius the tenth fixed the permanent date of
September 15, for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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