The sorrow of the Blessed Virgin Mary reached its climax at the foot of the Cross when her beloved son, whom she bore for nine months in her womb, whom she nourished and nurtured with loving tenderness and whom she brought up in the faith of her fathers, was betrayed, humiliated, scourged, crowned with thorns, condemned unjustly, loaded with a cross , stripped of his garments and finally crucified as a criminal on Mount Calvary with his heart brutally pierced open by the cruel lance of Longinus. Only a miracle might have prevented her from collapsing beneath the Cross. St. John was an eyewitness to that traumatic event. He took her to his own home and recorded faithfully the incident in his Gospel. (Jn.19: 27). Apparently John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was the first devotee of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Devotion to the Sorrows of our Lady was slow to pick up but then suddenly began to flourish in the middle Ages. As per records, the first altar dedicated to MATER DOLORSA (Sorrowful Mother) was set up in a monastery at Schonan in 1221. This was followed by a movement in this direction by the Order of the Servites, who began to initiate devotion to Mary under this title in 1239. Pope Pius VII took up the matter and extended the celebration of this feast to theUniversal Church. The hymn STABAT MATER, composed in the middle Ages, portrays vividly the anguish Mary had been experiencing at the foot of the Cross.
The traditional seven major painful incidents due to which Mary is called the Mother of Sorrows are:
1) Prophet Simeon’s prophesy. Mary was thrilled to offer her beloved son to the Eternal Father in the Temple of Jerusalem when Simeon ambushed her with a sword that would go on thrusting and piercing her heart all her life.
2) Flight into Egypt. Hardly was Jesus born when she was forced to take the child and flee into Egypt to escape the murderous designs of Herod. Refugees of the world can find consolation, strength and model in the Holy Family’s resignation to God’s will.
3) Loss of Jesus for three days. Taking advantage of the huge crowd, Jesus gave Mary and Joseph the slip and began to teach in the Temple. When we lose Jesus for one reason or another, He could easily be found in the Church, especially at the Confessional.
4) Mary meets Jesus carrying the Cross. As Jesus, bleeding, exhausted, emaciated and crushed under the weight of the Cross, trudged along the road to mount Calvary, Mary leaped forward valiantly to embrace her beloved son and shower him with kisses. It was a heart-rending but meaningful expression of her solidarity with the Redeemer.
5) The Crucifixion and death of Jesus. The three hours of excruciating pain experienced by Jesus seemed an eternity for Mary. She would have preferred a thousand deaths for herself to spare her son that ordeal. Jesus’ thoughtfulness about her even at the last moment further deepened the thrust of the sword.
6) The dead body of Jesus taken down from the Cross and placed in the lap of Mary. No human being can express adequately the intense suffering of Mary as she held her beloved son’s dead body on her lap for the last time. Michael Angelo’s Pietas has superbly captured the feelings and sentiments of Mary during that tragic scene. )
7) Jesus is laid in the tomb. Mary and a small courageous group of disciples offered Jesus an honourable funeral according to their means. Jesus had nothing that he could call his own. Even the manger at Bethlehem and the tomb in Jerusalem were gifted to him by kind-hearted people. Silently and prayerfully, Mary kept all these pondering in her heart.
Reflection: Mary heroically endured all these sufferings and sorrows as part of her vocation to be Mother of the Messiah. No human being has ever been closer to Jesus, the Redeemer, than Mary. As a result, no one has ever participated more intimately and more intensely in the redemptive sufferings of Jesus than Mary herself. She accepted and endured them on behalf of her erring children. Hence, she is rightly called the Mother of Sorrows.
This child is set for the rising and falling of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against…And a sword will pierce your own soul too. (Lk.2: 34-35)
