Our
Mother of Sorrows
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Today, Saturday, September 15, 2007, is the Feast of of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady in September, the month of the Mother of Sorrows.
Only a handful of genuine mystics have
been able to comprehend fully the depth of the pain and sorrow that
pierced Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart during her life. Most
of us erring sinners, while relying upon her maternal intercession as
her consecrated slaves, do not meditate too often or too deeply on the
sufferings Our Lady endured as her Divine Son bore the weight and the
horror of our sins to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross. One of
the ways to meditate more frequently on the sufferings of Our Lady is
to pray the Seven Dolors of Our Lady, reflecting on the seven dolors
or sorrows that Our Lady experienced as she fulfilled her role as the
Co-Redemptrix of the human race.
Each one of our sins,
no matter how small or venial, caused Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
to suffer unspeakable horror in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion
and Death. Those sins also caused Our Lady to suffer in a perfect communion
with the sufferings of her Divine Son. Having been preserved from all
stain of Original and Actual Sin, Our Lady's Immaculate Heart was perfectly
joined to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His sufferings were her sufferings.
Her sufferings were His sufferings. The matchless union of hearts that
existed once in time and exists in Heaven for all eternity between Our
Lady and Our Lord requires from us a response of total surrender and
submission. We must detest each one of our sins and seek to do penance
for our forgiven mortal sins and for all of our venial sins and our
general attachment to sin. Although sins are wiped away in the Sacrament
of Penance, the debt we owe for our forgiven sins remains. We are thus
called, as one of the prayers in the Miraculous Medal Novena notes,
to "recover by penance what we have lost by sin."
Sorrow
entered the world as a result of the effects of Adam's fall from grace
in the Garden of Eden. It was Our Lady, though, the new Eve and the
Ark of the New Covenant, that took sorrow unto herself as God's handmaid
and made it an instrument of our salvation in cooperation with the Redemptive
Act of her Divine Son. Our Lady, who is the Mother of Sorrows, reminds
us that there is no suffering or pain or difficulty that we can endure
in this passing vale of tears that is the equal of what she suffered
in perfect communion with her Divine Son. Our own sorrows, as real and
as intense as they may be, pale into insignificance when we meditate
upon Our Lady's sufferings. Indeed, an honest assessment of our lives
teaches us that we deserve as sinners to suffer and that it should be
our joy to help to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole
world by offering all of our sufferings and sorrows up to Our Lady's
Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slaves. The more we love Our Lord
and His Most Blessed Mother, the more we, like Saint Therese of the
Child Jesus before us, will pray for sufferings and humiliations
so as to be refined as we keep Our Lady company at the foot of her Son's
Holy Cross.
Indeed,
a priest I know told me years ago that there were times he wished he
could just go off to a monastery and spend the rest of his life weeping
for his sins and doing penance for them. Another individual, a lay man,
told me that he said the following during a time of intense personal
crisis and grief, "If only I wept for my sins the way that I am
weeping for myself right now." Such sorrow and contrition for one's
sins are representative of an understanding of the horror contained
within every sin we commit. Catholics know that we are powerless of
our own accord to deal with this sorrow, which is why so many people
who not only commit but persist in mortal sins unrepentantly must seek
to anesthetize their sorrow and/or seek the affirmation and approval
of others.
That
is, even people who do not understand or accept the objectively evil
nature of their actions will suffer the sorrowful effects of sin in
their lives without attributing their depression and malaise or anxiety
to the sins they are committing, which is why they must seek to flee
from the misery into which they have plunged themselves. As sinners
who have received the grace to be Catholics, we know that Divine absolution
is available to us in the Sacrament of Penance as the merits of the
Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ are applied to us by an alter
Christus acting in persona Christi. And it is Our Lady,
the the Mother of Mercy--our life, our sweetness and our hope, who intercedes
for us to be humble enough to cooperate with the actual graces that
flow out of the Mass to get ourselves into the confessional and to make
a firm purpose of amendment to sin no more, thereby making it possible
for us to be less of a source of sorrow and grief to her Immaculate
Heart. As the Mediatrix of all graces, Our Lady is indeed our hope as
we attempt to walk on the rocky road that leads to the narrow gate of
life won for the many by her Divine Son's Redemptive Act.
A
brief review of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady and we can relate to them
might be instructive at this juncture.
The
Prophecy of Simeon
The
aged Simeon waited patiently in the Temple, confident that God would
fulfill the promise He had made to him in his youth, that he would not
die before his eyes had seen and he had beheld in his own arms the Messiah.
Simeon must have been thought to be something of a religious fanatic
to his relatives because of all of the time he spent waiting for the
Messiah to be revealed to him. God had revealed to Simeon much more
than the fact that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. God had
told Simeon what the Mother of the Messiah, Mary of Nazareth, would
have to suffer, giving him the words that he would utter to the woman
who made possible our salvation when she presented her infant Son in
the Temple.
And
Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: "Behold this
child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel,
and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword
shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed." (Lk. 2: 34-35).
Our Lady heard these
troubling words from Simeon, storing them in her heart. God was telling
her through Simeon that her present joy would be replaced with the sorrow
of seeing her Son, who was to be and remains the Sign of Contradiction,
suffer. Our Lady trusted in God totally and without any reservation.
Her acceptance of Simeon's prophecy teaches each of us that we, who
are baptized to be living signs of contraction in imitation of the
Sign of Contradiction Who our sins hung on the wood of the Holy Cross,
must be ready to accept suffering as the price of our discipleship.
We must accept it in our lives. We must understand that those we love
will have to be refined in the crucible of suffering, uniting it all
to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart and to be thus used be
her as she sees fit for the greater honor and glory of the Blessed Trinity
and for the salvation of souls. Mothers and fathers have to understand
that their children are going to suffer. Some may die at an early age
as a result of an incurable disease or an unexpected tragedy. Others
may go through life suffering one humiliation after another because
they remain steadfast in their defense of the Holy Faith. The first
dolor of Our Lady reminds us that no suffering any of us endures is
the equal of what she endured to bring us forth in great pain at the
foot of the Cross as adopted children of the living God.
The
Flight into Egypt
And
after they departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to
Joseph, saying: 'Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into
Egypt: and be there until I shall tell thee. For it will come to pass
that Herod will seek the child to destroy him.' Who arose, and took
the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt: and he was
there until the death of Herod: That it might be fulfilled which the
Lord spoke by the prophet saying: Out of Egypt I have called my son.
(Mt. 2: 13-15)
To avoid the
clutches of the evil King Herod, Saint Joseph fled with his most chaste
spouse, Our Lady, and his foster-Child, Our Lord, and lived as refugees
in Egypt. Our Lord, Who was born in poverty, stripped of all of the
royal prerogatives due his kingly dignity, lived as an exile. There
was no room in the inn in Bethlehem for the Holy Family. Room was found
for them in Egypt, which is where the Hebrew people had suffered for
440 years in cruel slavery as the slaves to the Egyptians before being
led out by a figure of Christ, Moses, through the parted waters of the
Red Sea to their forty years' desert journey prior to entering into
the Promised Land of Canaan. Our Lady was thus forced to make a temporary
home for her Child and her husband as they fled for their lives.
The sorrow
of not being able to return to Nazareth in light of the evil designs
King Herod had on her Divine Son was excruciating for Our Lady. Do we
force Our Lady into exile in our lives by forgetting our consecration
to her, by forgetting to pray the family Rosary with care each and every
day? Do we forget to meditate on the silent, selfless sacrifices made
by Saint Joseph as he responded immediately to Saint Gabriel's warnings
and abandoned his own place of business in order to do that which he
had to do as the head of his household to protect and safeguard his
chaste spouse and his foster-Child? Are we willing to take our own flight
into a figurative Egypt for the sake of the Faith, especially by means
of seeking out the Immemorial Mass of Tradition so as to protect ourselves
and our family members from the harmful novelty that is the Novus
Ordo Missae and from anything and everything that is tainted by conciliarism and the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism? Are we willing to be so completely detached from our
desires that we can flee at a moment's notice from our own homes when
called to do so, especially to have access to the fullness of Faith?
Are we, in other words, willing to do what the Holy Family did? Do we
truly understand that we have no permanent home here in this life and
that we must seek out first the Kingdom of Heaven, of which Holy Mass
is a foretaste?
The
Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple
And
when he was twelve years old, they going into Jerusalem, according to
the custom of the feast. And having fulfilled the days, when they returned,
the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not.
And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day's journey,
and sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
And
not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came
to pass that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting
in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions.
And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers.
And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: "Son,
why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee
sorrowing."
And
he said to them: "How is it that you sought me? did you not know,
that I must be about my father's business?" And they understood
not the word that he spoke unto them. And he went down with them, and
came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these
words in her heart." (Lk. 2, 42-51)
There are
few worse feelings for a parent than to lose sight of his children.
The realization that a child has run off can cause a parent's heart
to miss a beat or two. I know. As we were putting our few earthly possessions
in a storage facility in Bethpage, Long Island, in July of 2003 prior
to resuming our full-time life in our motor home, my wife went to get
a hand truck as I held the gate of our storage bin up, thinking that
our daughter was with my wife. She was not. Lucy Mary Norma had run
away down the hallway of this use facility. Thanks be to God, she came
back when I cried out her name, thinking that the whole thing was very
funny. We pride ourselves on keeping a very close watch on our daughter,
knowing full well the dangers of the era in which we live. We take nothing
for granted. All it takes, though, is a momentary lapse, as happened
when I simply thought that our daughter was with her mother, before
a moment of panic arises.
Our Lady and Saint
Joseph believed that Our Lord was with their relatives in the caravan
returning to Nazareth. They thought that he was visiting and playing
with his cousins and friends. The realization that this was not the
case caused Our Lady's Immaculate Heart to be burdened with sorrow.
Had He been kidnapped? Had He had an accident? What relief Our Lady
and Saint Joseph felt when they found Our Lord answering questions put
to Him by the doctors in the Temple. (Just an aside: Our Lord was not
"teaching" in the Temple. Our Lord did presumed to do that
which was inappropriate for a Jewish boy of his age. A Jewish boy of
twelve years of age did not presume the office of teaching. He was responding
to questions that had been put to Him by the rabbinical doctors.)
Do we grieve
when we lose possession of Our Lord by means losing the state of Sanctifying
Grace if, God forbid, we commit a Mortal Sin? Do we have sorrow in our
hearts knowing that our indifference and our ingratitude have caused
us to lose sight frequently of the fact that we are called at all times
to live in such a way as to be prepared for a holy death as members
of Christ's true Church, outside of which there is no salvation? Do
we forget to spend time regularly before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer?
Do we forget to adorn our homes with crucifixes and images of the Blessed
Mother and Saint Joseph and other saints and of the angels? Do we forget
the importance of naming our children after saints to help them to learn
to grow in sanctity in imitation of the saint whose name they bear?
Do we grieve for our relatives who have left the Faith or who are nominal
Catholics who don't want to "take things too far" and/or who
are hostile to the fullness of the Faith found in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition?
Do we make efforts to recover them for Christ and His true Church in the catacombs wehre no concessions are made to concilairism or to its false shepherds? There
are many ways we continue to cause Our Lady to suffer by means of our
forgetfulness of her Divine Son and the supernatural helps He has given
us through Holy Mother Church.
The Meeting
of Jesus and Mary on the Via Dolorosa
The Via Dolorosa.
The Way of Sorrows. Each of us walks on a figurative Via Dolorosa as
we march forward in the direction of our daily crosses, our daily Calvaries,
if you will. Life is full of difficulties. With the exception of the
handful of genuine mystics, such as Saint Bridget of Sweden, none of
us can possibly imagine the incomprehensible sorrow Our Lady suffered
when she saw the fruit of her virginal and immaculate womb carrying
His Cross on the Way of Sorrows. Mel Gibson did a pretty good job of
showing us the encounter in his The Passion of the Christ.
Even that filmed representation, however, cannot begin to plumb the
depths of sorrow Our Lady felt.
Our Lady had given
her Divine Son the Flesh with which He would pay back the sin of Adam
on the wood of the Holy Cross. She had given Him the Blood that would
be shed for the forgiveness of sins. The Sacred Heart that was loaded
down with our sins had been formed of her own Sorrowful and Immaculate
Heart. Our Lady had beheld the radiance of her newborn Son in the stable
in the cave in Bethlehem. She beheld Him on the Way of Sorrows as One
Who had been defiled and disfigured almost beyond recognition as a result
of our sins, our ingratitude, our indifference, our lack of willingness
to even to aspire to scale up to the heights of personal sanctity.
She loved Him with a perfect love. She suffered a sorrow beyond all
telling when gazing upon His wounded countenance. She grieves for us,
her adopted children, because we do not appreciate the horror of our
sins and what it cost her as she cast her gaze upon our loving Redeemer.
We must, therefore,
resolve to walk our daily Via Dolorosa by taking Our Lady with us so
that we will see the face of the suffering Christ in everyone we encounter,
so that we will at all times keep in mind our First Cause and our Last
End, understanding that everything we say and do has an eternal dimension
to it. Everything we say and do either helps us to get to Heaven or
heaps more Purgatory time on us if are given the grace to die in a state
of sanctifying grace. Those things we say and do that are hurtful to
Our Lady and thus to our salvation might wind up sending us to Hell
for all eternity if we let the weeds of spiritual sloth and abject neglect
of the interior life cast out from within us the very inner life of
the Blessed Trinity. We must stand watch with Our Lady as her trusting,
docile, submissive children as we encounter her Son in the persons we
meet in all walks of our daily life, treating them as we would treat
Him, showing them the compassion and love that Our Lady showed Him and
that she wants to bestow so generously upon each one of us if we merely
invoke her maternal intercession and consecrate ourselves totally to
her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
The
Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen.
When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own. Afterwards, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. Now there was a vessel set there full of vinegar. And they, putting a sponge full of vinegar and hyssop, put it to his mouth. Jesus therefore, when he had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost. (Jn. 19: 25-30)
Mel Gibson
got the portrayal of Our Lady right as the actress who portrayed her
stood by the foot of the Cross in The Passion of the Christ.
As Anne Catherine Emmerich recounts in The Dolorous Passion of Our
Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lady stood by the foot of her Divine Son's
Cross with a dignified solemnity, containing the unspeakable grief her
Immaculate Heart suffered as the sword of sorrow prophesied by Simeon
pierced her heart through and through. Our Lady wept, but not uncontrollably
(as portrayed in Jesus of Nazareth). She stood by her Son's
Cross valorously, suffering physically as He suffered physically, suffering
in the depth of her Immaculate Heart as He suffered in the depth of
His Most Sacred Heart. Words are useless to describe this sorrow. Words
are not only inadequate. They are completely and totally useless. Our
puny little hearts, so stained by the vestigial after-effects of our
sins, cannot even begin to grasp but the faintest traces of the grief
Our Lady suffered as she saw the toll our sins took on her Divine Son's
Sacred Humanity and as she herself shared in that suffering completely.
Words are
useless. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the unbloody representation
of the Sacrifice of Calvary, says all we ever need to have said about
the dolor of Our Lady standing by the foot of the Cross as her Son underwent
His fearful Crucifixion to win back for us on the tree of the Cross
what was lost for us on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in
the Garden of Eden. Our Lady is present at each offering of Holy Mass.
She is there not only with the few souls who accompanied her (Saint
John the Evangelist, Saint Mary Magdalene. Mary of Cleophas) but with
all of the souls of Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering. All
of the choirs of angels are there. And we, whose sins put us on the
wrong side of the Cross as Our Lady suffered so valiantly as our Co-Redemptrix.
We have the privilege of consoling Our Lady at Holy Mass, which is why
we should have such a love of the Mass that we will make any and all
sacrifices imaginable, including (as mentioned before) moving if necessary
to have access to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition on a daily basis.
Words are useless.
Love the Mass. Keep Our Lady, the Queen of all of the Angels and Saints,
company as a sacerdos, priest, enfleshes her Son under the
appearances of bread and wine. The more frequently we assist at Holy
Mass will be the more we grow in the depth of our understanding of the
intense sorrow Our Lady experienced as our sins put her Son to death
and the great love she us for us as our Mother.
The
Pieta
The taking
down of Our Lord's dead Body from the Holy Cross was a source of great
sorrow for Our Lady. There are few things so moving as a mother grieving
over the dead body of her child. Mothers expect to predecease their
children. Our Lady had stored up the words of Simeon's prophecy. The
sword of sorrow prophesied by Simeon pierced her heart completely as
her Son's body was placed into her loving arms. She who had beheld her
Son as a newborn infant beheld his lifeless corpse, grieving over the
indifference of the men whose sins had put Him to death and grieving
also over the fact that He had died for many souls who would refuse
to cooperate with the graces He had just won for them by the shedding
of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood.
As Our Lord gave each
one of us to be the children of his own Blessed Mother, we must comfort
her in these times when her Son's Mystical Body, Holy Mother Church,
is wounded by our own sins and by the widespread confusion and the propagation
of error within the Church's highest quarters. Although Our Lord cannot
suffer again physically, He suffers in the persons of the members of
His Mystical Body. Our Lady weeps as each of us worsens the state of
the Church by our lukewarmness and our refusal to spend as much time
in prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament, as we ought. She
weeps as antipopes claim to occupy the Throne of Saint Peter as they and the false "bishops" who have been in communion
with them pervert the Faith and do so much harm to so many souls.
Our Lady, who beheld the lifeless corpse of her Son, Our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, holds the Church and each of her members as she endures
attacks from without and errors aplenty from quartesr of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that claims to be the true Catholic Church, which can never give us error and sacrilege. We must resolve
never again to be such a source of sorrow for Our Lady, surrendering
unto her Immaculate Heart whatever merits we earn by enduring the crosses
of ordinary living and the crosses of the reality of the Church Militant's
horrific situation today as he consecrated slaves. We must trust in
her. As she beheld her Son after death, she wants to behold each one
of us if we persist in a state of sanctifying grace until the point
of our dying breaths.
The
Burial of Jesus
And when it was evening, there came a certain rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate, and asked the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded that the body should be delivered. And Joseph taking the body, wrapped it up in a clean linen cloth. And laid it in his own new monument, which he had hewed out in a rock. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the monument, and went his way. (Mt. 27: 57-60)
Joseph of
Arimathea, disciple of Jesus (but a secret one for fear of the Jews),
besought Pontius Pilate to take away the Body of Jesus and to lay it
in a new tomb he had hewn out of stone. Pilate gave permission. The
life cycle of Our Lord was thus brought to a symmetrical conclusion
prior to His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
That is, Our
Lady gave birth to Our Lord in a cave on the first Christmas day. She
watches as her Son's dead Body is laid in the cave out of which Joseph
of Arimathea had hewn His tomb. Our Lady wrapped the Infant Jesus in
swaddling clothes. She wraps her Son's dead Body in His burial shroud,
whose miraculous existence continues to befuddle scientists and to inspire
believers. Unlike His Nativity in Bethlehem, though, Our Lady must depart
from her Son as the tomb is sealed. She has great Faith. She is still
nevertheless a mother grieving over the death of her Son. Her Immaculate
Heart, though full of grace and the fortitude provided by her faith,
is pierced through for the last time prior to her Son's Resurrection.
She then awaits His appearance to her on Easter Sunday as she keeps
a vigil in prayer.
We must do
no less than what Our Lady did during the forty hours between Our Lord's
burial on Good Friday and His Resurrection on Easter Sunday morning.
We must keep a vigil in prayer. None of us knows when we will breathe
our last. None of us knows when our mortal bodies will be placed in
a grave. If we want those bodies to rise up incorrupt and glorious on
the Last Day, we must do as Our Lady did during the forty hours. We
must pray. We must fast. We must bury any and all hurts. We must forgive
all of those who we believe, rightly or wrongly, have hurt us or misunderstood
us or calumniated us. Just as Our Lady waited patiently during those
forty hours, so must we wait patiently until the intentions of all hearts
are revealed at the General Judgment of the Dead on the Last Day. It
matters not who misunderstands us and speaks ill of us. All is revealed
on the Last Day.
We must not
grieve Our Lady by holding grudges or refusing to forgive those who
we believe have offended us. We must forgive as her Divine Son forgave
us, His executioners, on the wood of the Holy Cross, and as He forgives
us through the lips and at the hands of an alter Christus acting
in persona Christi in the hospital of Divine Mercy that is
the Sacrament of Penance. Et dimmite nobis debita nostra, sicut
et nos dimmitimus debitoribus nostris. We must bury the old man
of disordered self-love and lust and hatred and envy and greed and anger
and put on the new Man Who is the fruit of Our Lady's womb, Our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. We are called to die to self and to bury the
past of our sins by cooperating with the sacraments administered to
us by Holy Mother Church. We are called to grow in the supernatural
virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity with every beat of our hearts, consecrated
as they must be to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart
of Jesus.
We should pray the Chaplet of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady every day. The chaplet consists of announcing each of the Seven Dolors before praying one Pater Noster and seven Aves, saying at the end of the seventh Ave, "
Pray for us, O most sorrowful Virgin. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ." Three final Aves are said in honor of the tears that Our Lady shed because of the suffering that our sins imposed upon her Divine Son in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death. The chaplet (chaplets can be purchased from
Mary Immaculate Queen Bookstore, 8504 N. St. Michael’s Rd.,
Spokane, WA 99217-9333,
Phone: (509) 467-1077 • Fax: (509) 467-1177) concludes with the following prayer after those last three Aves:
Lord Jesus, we now implore,
both for the present
and for the hour of our death,
the intercession of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy Mother,
whose holy soul was pierced
at the time of Thy Passion by a sword of grief.
Grant us this favour,
O Saviour of the world,
Who livest and reignest
with the Father and the Holy Ghost
for ever and ever.
Amen.
A meditation
on the Seven Dolors of Our Lady produces abundant peace, yes even in
the midst of personal difficulties and of all the problems that beset
the Church and the world, which is in more of a state of confusion and
barbarism because of the triumph of Modernism in the conciliar church. Here are the Seven Graces that Our Lady gives to those who
meditate on her Seven Dolors:
1)
I will grant peace to their families
2)
They will be enlightened about the divine mysteries.
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 and I will be their eternal consolation and joy. (Our
Lady of the Rosary Library, Prospect, Kentucky)
As a terrible
sinner who trembles when he considers that God is just, knowing that
it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God, I place
my trust in Our Lady that this propagation of a devotion to her Seven
Dolors might count in some small measure to obtain the graces listed
above, especially number seven. May we implore her help at all times
so that she will plead for us at the hour of our deaths, presenting
us to the Blessed Trinity as one of the children for whom she did not
suffer in vain. Let us be intent on
reforming our lives so that we will never grieve Our Lady, who suffered
so much as our Co-Redemptrix, again.
Our Lady, Mother or
Sorrows, pray for us.
Prayers in Honor of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady, approved by Pope Pius VII in 1815:
O God, come to my assistance;
R. O Lord, make haste to help me.
V. Glory be to the Father, etc.
R. As it was in the beginning, etc.
1. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in affliction of your tender heart at the prophecy of the holy and aged Simeon. O dearest Mother, by your heart so afflicted, implore for me the virtue of humility and the Gift of the holy Fear of God. Ave Maria
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. O dearest Mother, by your anxious heart so troubled, obtain for me the virtue of generosity, especially toward the poor, and the Gift of Piety. Ave Maria.
3. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in those anxieties which tried your troubled heart at the loss of your beloved Child Jesus. O dearest Mother, by your exeedingly troubled heart implore for me the virtue of chastity and the Gift of Knowledge. Ave Maria.
4. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, on account of the horror with which your mother-heart was stricken when meeting Jesus bearing the Cross. O dearest Mother, by your exeedingly oppressed heart implore for me the virtue of patience and the Gift of Fortitude. Ave Maria.
5. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, on account of that martyrdom which tortured your generous heart at the death-agony of Jesus. O dearest Mother, through this thy martyred heart, implore for me the virtue of temperance and the Gift of Counsel. Ave Maria.
6. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the wounding of your tender heart, by the thrust of the lance that opened the side of Jesus and pierced His most adorable Heart. O dearest Mother, by this vicarious transfixion of thy own heart, implore for me the virtue of brotherly love and the Gift of Understanding. Ave Maria.
7. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, on account of that agony which racked your most loving heart at the burial of Jesus. O dearest Mother, through this extreme torment that filled thy burdened heart, obtain for me the virtue of zeal and the Gift of Wisdom.
V. Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let Us Pray:
'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.'
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Jude, pray for us.
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.
Saint Nicomedes, pray for us.
Saint Frances of Rome, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.
Saint John of God, pray for us.
Saint Scholastica, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Sebastian, pray for us.
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Saint Genevieve, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.
Francisco Marto, pray for us.
Jacinta Marto, pray for us.
Juan Diego, pray for us.
The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888
O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.
Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.
Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
Response: As we have hoped in Thee.
Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.
Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.
Verse: Let us pray. O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls.
Response: Amen.
