Friday of Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin
Today, a week before Good Friday, the Church has traditionally remembered the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin. While the commemoration was removed from the calendar in 1970, it survives in the Extraordinary Form, as well as in many local calendars including that most Catholic country of Malta and many Hispanic countries.
The commemoration is so widespread, in fact, that the Third Edition of Missale Romanum contains an alternative collect for the day:
O God, who in this season
give your Church the grace
to imitate devoutly the Blessed Virgin Mary
in contemplating the Passion of Christ,
grant, we pray, through her intercession,
that we may cling more firmly each day
to your Only Begotten Son
and come at last to the fullness of his grace.Amen.
What are the Seven Sorrows?
The Seven Sorrows come out of the Prophecy of Simeon in Saint Luke’s Gospel. They are the events in the life of the Blessed Virgin where the sword of sorrow pierced her heart.
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted, and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
(Luke 2:34-35)
There are numerous web sites that can give you the full picture, but here’s a quick list:
- The prophecy of Simeon
(Luke 2:22-35) - The flight into Egypt
(Matthew 2:13-21) - Loss of the Child Jesus for three days
(Luke 2:41-50) - Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary
(Luke 23:27-31) - The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
(John 19:25-30) - Mary receives the dead body of her son
(John 19:31-34, 38; c.f. Lamentations 1:12) - Jesus is laid in the tomb
(Matthew 27:59; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:55-56; John 19:38-42; c.f. Isaiah 53:8)
There are several devotions that hearken back to these sorrows, in both the Western and Eastern traditions.
I’m struck that the Seven Sorrows bookend Christ’s life, all occurring when he was twelve or younger, or at His passion and death. No doubt there were long years of contentment, moments of joy, but all the world wonders at the heartbreak of the Immaculata.
Back in May of 2022, as I explored the Cathedral of Santa María in Lugo, I came upon a wonderful statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. This inspired me to sit and meditate on her sorrows before the Blessed Sacrament – the cathedral records indicate that there has been perpetual Adoration here since the sixth century.
After sitting a while in prayer, I was soon caught up by the continuity of the cathedral’s art and architecture, from the Romanesque, to the Gothic, to the Baroque. As I sat there, I began to think about the relative poverty of Catholic art and architecture in the current time, and its relation to the liturgical action.
Why do we insist on impoverishing the expression of our faith? Why do we shun the ancient and the beautiful? Why do we not celebrate the artistic heritage of the Church bestowed upon us by twenty centuries of artists and poets and saints – the art, the architecture, the sacred vestments, the music – and instead hide it under a bushel basket?
It turned into quite an essay, as I spent the next days trying to get onto paper what had appeared in my brain in a flash of realization. Someday, I might even publish it.