Over the centuries, the People of God has lavished upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, numerous titles to express their love and devotion. Many of them are contained in the Litany of Loreto [and cited in the many of the windows of our church]. Most titles highlight her privileges and glories: her Immaculate Conception, her Queenship, her virtues. The title of our church and the title under which we place our patronage—Our Lady of Sorrows, the Addolorata—may not appear so exalted.
Yet, Our Lady’s true greatness rests not so much in the lofty honors the Church bestowed on her in virtue of her unique calling, as in her own intense faith, which prompted her to accept God’s will without hesitation or reservation. This was a faith that allowed her to bear the sorrows of life.
When we think of it, Our Lady of Sorrows is the title that most closely joins Mary to us. When we turn to Mary, we are not only praying to the Queen of Heaven but also to Mary of Nazareth, a daughter, a wife, a mother, a woman who had a difficult life, who knows life’s struggles and pains. This is revealed to us in the Gospels: Having to make the arduous journey to Bethlehem, late in her pregnancy, finding no room in the inn; having to give birth to Jesus in the filth of a manger. She was uprooted and had to flee to Egypt; she knew the anxiety of losing her child for three days; she heard the terrible rumors circulated by her Son’s enemies. She united herself to her Son’s Via Dolorosa to Calvary and stood at the foot of the cross.
In a prayer addressing Mary, St. Bernard said, “No sword could pierce your Son’s flesh without piercing your soul.” It was on Calvary, in that decisive hour in all of history, the dramatic climax of Mary’s life, that Jesus gives her to us as a mother. At that moment, Mary becomes the spiritual mother of John and of the Church. St. John Paul II said that this was the moment that Jesus established the Church’s Marian devotion. Like John, we must take Mary into our homes, into our hearts…for she is ours and we are hers.
When difficulties, struggles and sorrows knock at our door; when the sword pierces our own heart, we can turn to our patroness, to our Mother. Let us make our parish feast day, the prayer of Cardinal Angelo Comastri:
O Mary,
In your Son, you embrace every child
and feel the suffering of all mothers in the world.
O Mary,
Your tears that pass from century to century,
streak the faces of those who weep.
O Mary,
You have known sorrow but believed.
You believed that clouds do not extinguish the sun,
You believed that night is a preparation for the dawn.
O Mary,
You sang the Magnificat!
Intone for us the hymn that conquers every sorrow.
O Mary,
pray for us!
Pray so that we might be inflamed
With the true hope that is Jesus, and only Jesus!
