In honor of this Jubilee Year of Hope, Catholicmom.com wanted to do a series for July called "Hope Found in Prayer". Prayer is such a personal experience and different for everyone. We may be saying the same prayers out loud, but the words are being absorbed into our hearts and minds in different ways. Even as individuals, the same prayer or Bible passage can hit us in completely different ways depending on the season of life we are in or whatever situation we are working through.
For this particular Catholicmom series, all of the contributing writers were asked to share about a specific prayer that brings them hope. For me, the prayer that brings me hope is the Seven Sorrows of Mary.
Mary suffered so much over the course of her life. And because of her experiences, we can be assured that we have a Heavenly mother who understands our own painful life circumstances and who longs to pour consolation into our hurting hearts.
A Grace From Mary
Learning about the Seven Sorrows of Mary was a grace for me when our daughter, Therese was born with a fatal genetic disorder and passed away at sixteen days old in 1998. Mary's Seven Sorrows gave me a way to connect some of the most sorrowful moments of my life to each of her sorrows during Therese's 16 day journey on earth. In the time of some of my deepest grief, Mary's experiences helped me to feel understood and less alone in my pain.
The Seven Sorrows
For anyone not familiar with the Seven Sorrows of Mary, it consists of saying seven "decades" that include an Our Father and seven Hail Mary's. For each "decade" you meditate on the following sorrows that Our Lady suffered during her lifetime:
- The Prophecy of Simeon
- The Flight into Egypt
- The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple
- Meeting Jesus on the Road to Calvary
- Standing at the Foot of the Cross
- Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross and Placed in Mary's Arms
- The Burial of Jesus
Out of the Seven Sorrows, it's the Seventh Sorrow that gives me the most hope right now. Which seems pretty ironic ... after all, in the Seventh Sorrow, Jesus has died and is laid in a tomb. Mary no longer even has the presence of Jesus' body to give her any semblance of comfort. She walks away from the tomb after the day when the most horrific pain and grief has pierced her heart. But that's not the part of the sorrow that gives me hope.
What gives me hope is Mary's unwavering trust and hope that remains alive in her broken heart even in the most hopeless of circumstances. Mary leaves Jesus' tomb grieving, but she doesn't despair. She is waiting on God and trusting that He will bring good out of the horror that she had just lived through. As Saint John Paul the Great said about Mary after Jesus had been laid in the tomb, Mary "alone remains to keep alive the flame of faith, preparing to receive the joyful and astonishing announcement of the Resurrection."(Address at the General Audience, 3 April 1996; L'Osservatore Ramano English edition, 10 April 1996, p.7)
When everyone else around her had given up, Mary was the only one who kept the hope of the church alive on that first Holy Saturday. Mary's example gives me hope and courage. Because as women and mothers, how often do we find ourselves trying to keep faith alive within our family? The brokenness in our lives that appears to have little hope, yet we still call out to God and wait for Him to resurrect what seems lost. The relationships that only He can breathe life back into that we refuse to give up on.
What situations are you waiting for Jesus to resurrect in your life?
And while it will most likely take longer than one Holy Saturday for the circumstances and relationships that we are waiting on and praying for to be resurrected, we can wait with our Heavenly Mother for the redemption of our circumstances in God's timing. She will tend to our broken hearts, console us, and give us hope and fortitude in our waiting.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
(If you would like to read more articles written for Catholicmom's Month of Hope,
click here)
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| This is currently one of my favorite pictures of OLOS. You can find it at Sanctified Souls. |
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