Our Lady of Sorrows

When the infant Jesus was presented in the Temple, the old man Simeon told Mary, "A sword will pierce your own soul" (Luke 2:35). Christian devotion has traditionally meditated on seven sorrows of Mary: Simeon's prophecy, the flight into Egypt, the loss of the child Jesus in the Temple, meeting Jesus on the way to Calvary, his crucifixion, his body taken down from the Cross, and his burial.

The Servite Order, founded in Florence in the thirteenth century, spread this devotion widely. Pope Pius VII extended a feast of the Seven Sorrows to the whole Church in 1814 in thanksgiving for his release from captivity under Napoleon, and Pope Pius X set it on September 15 in 1913. The medieval hymn Stabat Mater, "the sorrowful mother stood," is sung on this day.

Many Hispanic communities also keep Viernes de Dolores, the Friday before Palm Sunday, with altars to the Dolorosa decorated with candles, flowers and sprouted wheat, especially in Mexico and Guatemala. In Spain her images, often with seven swords piercing her heart, are carried in Holy Week processions.

September 15 is a national holiday in Slovakia, whose patroness she is, and many families pray the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows on this day.