September 15 is usually observed as Our Lady of Sorrows. The memorial is immediately adjacent to the Exaltation of the Cross, underscoring the linkage between Jesus’ Passion and Mary’s own sufferings. Only because September 15 is a Sunday in 2024 is the memorial preempted.
Just in time for the occasion is a new book on “contemplating the Seven Sorrows” of Our Lady. The authors have assembled a formidable set of spiritual resources.
The core is the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows, a Rosary-like devotion from the Seven Founders of the Servite Order. The authors seek to combine the Chaplet with contemplative prayer, for which they take St. Alphonsus Ligouri as their guide and do a good job of explaining it for those who want to take it up. As incentives, they also discuss various “promises” attached to this devotion throughout the mystical tradition. They round out the book with meditations on each of the Seven Sorrows: 1) Simeon’s prophecy, 2) the flight into Egypt, 3) the loss of the young Jesus in the Temple, 4) Mary’s encounter with her Son on the Via Dolorosa, 5) the Crucifixion, 6) Mary receiving her Son’s Body from the Cross, and 7) Jesus’ burial. Like the Rosary, the Chaplet is a devotion firmly grounded in the Bible: its contemplative practice can only deepen the contact of those who pray it with critical moments in the lives of Mary and Christ.
The authors also choose to connect individual sorrows with each of the sacraments, as well as to identify patron saints they also think appropriate to a sorrow in the contemporary world (e.g., mental burdens and illness) that have an affinity to one of the Sorrows.
One might not take all of the authors’ associations, but they do provide grist for meditation, and that’s what’s important. We should not imagine that Mary’s Sorrows do not also find echoes in the current human condition, and, in that, the authors deserve credit for creativity. Even more so, they deserve praise both for popularizing the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows and for their effort to make contemplative and meditative prayer (à la St. Alphonsus) intelligible for people today that want to deepen their prayer lives. Worth the read!
John Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) was former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ.
Image Source: https://www.amazon.com/Contemplating-Seven-Sorrows-Mary-Alphonsus/dp/B0CZCZDMNR
