Traditional Prayer to Our Lady of Sorrows
O most holy and afflicted Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, you stood beneath the cross, witnessing the agony of your dying Son. Look with a mother’s tenderness and pity on me, who kneel before you.
I venerate your sorrows and place my requests with filial confidence in the sanctuary of your wounded heart.
Present them, I beseech you, on my behalf to Jesus Christ, through the merits of His most sacred Passion and Death, together with your sufferings at the foot of the cross; and through the united efficacy of both, obtain the grant of my present petition.
To whom shall I resort in my wants and miseries if not to you, O Mother of Mercy, who, having so deeply drunk of the chalice of your Son, can compassionate the sorrows of those who still sigh in the land of exile?
Amen.
The Story of Our Lady of Sorrows
For a while there were two feasts in honor of the Sorrowful Mother: one going back to the 15th century, the other to the 17th century. For a while both were celebrated by the universal Church: one on the Friday before Palm Sunday, the other in September.
The principal biblical references to Mary’s sorrows are in Luke 2:35 and John 19:26-27. The Lucan passage is Simeon’s prediction about a sword piercing Mary’s soul; the Johannine passage relates Jesus’ words from the cross to Mary and to the beloved disciple.
Many early Church writers interpret the sword as Mary’s sorrows, especially as she saw Jesus die on the cross. Thus, the two passages are brought together as prediction and fulfillment.
Saint Ambrose in particular sees Mary as a sorrowful yet powerful figure at the cross. Mary stood fearlessly at the cross while others fled. Mary looked on her Son’s wounds with pity, but saw in them the salvation of the world. As Jesus hung on the cross, Mary did not fear to be killed, but offered herself to her persecutors.