Our Lady of Sorrows

Their story

On the day after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church remembers the sorrows of Mary, who stood at the foot of her Son's cross. When Mary and Joseph presented the infant Jesus in the Temple, the old man Simeon told her, "A sword will pierce your own soul too." His words came true many times in her life. Christian devotion has traditionally counted seven sorrows of Mary: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the loss of the child Jesus in the Temple for three days, meeting Jesus on the way to Calvary, standing at the cross as He died, receiving His body when it was taken down, and placing Him in the tomb. Through all of them Mary did not lose faith. She stood by her Son to the end and shared in His suffering with love. The Servite Order, founded in the 1200s, helped spread devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows, and the beautiful hymn Stabat Mater, "At the cross her station keeping," has been sung for centuries. In 1814 Pope Pius VII extended the feast to the whole Church in thanksgiving for his release from captivity under Napoleon. Mary, the Mother of Sorrows, is a companion for everyone who grieves and for every parent who has watched a child suffer.