Mary has more feasts dedicated to her than any other saint. That is due to her perfection in loving and obeying the will of God in her role as Mother of God. But we must not forget that before her Assumption into Heaven, she dealt with the evils that beset her Son, and transformed them by the grace of God into gifts that she presented to God the Father. She is Our Lady of Sorrows. There are seven sorrows attributed to Mary: 1. The Prophecy of Simeon in Luke 2:34-35; 2. The Flight into Egypt in Matthew 2:13; 3. The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem in Luke 2:43-45; 4. The meeting of Mary and Jesus on the road to Calvary (not in Scripture); 5. The Crucifixion of Jesus in John 19:25; 6. The Descent from the Cross in Matthew 27:57-59; and 7. The Burial of Jesus in John 19:40-42.
Each of these events caused great suffering to Mary, but she bore it uniting it to the suffering that her Son would, and did, undergo. At the visit of the shepherds Luke comments: “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Lk 1:19). Suffering happens to us all. But Jesus transformed suffering into joy; his Passion and Death into Resurrection and Ascension. And just as the Mother of God joined her suffering to her Son, so too may “we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears” to her and through her to her Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ. We suffer pain, turmoil, rejection, illness, abandonment, separation, misunderstanding, fear, and eventually death. But these do not have the final say! Jesus Christ is our salvation! Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
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