Pope Francis dedicated a year to St. Joseph. Join us in a Meditation Novena to prepare for the feast of St. Joseph.
Written by Teresa Williams, CRC, these nine daily meditations will pull text from Pope Francis’s Apostolic Letter: Patris Corde (With the Father’s Heart). Each day will include a text, a short meditation, and a prayer.
Sign up below for the nine daily emails starting March 10, 2025. This will end in preparation for the Feast of St. Joseph on March 19
Day 1 – Introduction
“Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy; They will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee.” Isaiah 51:11
In today’s culture, many of us live projecting an image of perfection and happiness, as if we have it all together. The reality is that everyone struggles, everyone has their cross and no one has it all together. We attempt to live behind a façade, but we all know deep down the truth about our own brokenness and misery. Reflecting on the seven sorrows of Mary can be liberating. She suffered. She faced setbacks. She made mistakes. Mary had sorrow, but she is also the greatest saint in the history of humanity. She didn’t have a life without difficulties, nor did she run away from problems. She “kept all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:51) and through prayer found the purpose and meaning of all things.
To reflect on Mary’s sorrows is to peel back the mask that we wear, to drop the façade of perfection, and to open up our horizons to the deep truth that holiness doesn’t come from us holding it all together but from God holding us. His grace and mercy are the defining point of a truly Christian life.
We can try to hide our sorrows and pain, but they will eventually seep out. All the resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, neglect, abuse and fear that we have experienced in our lives are the source of our sorrows, and they are not healed simply by the passing of time. Only by facing them as the Blessed Virgin Mary did will we be healed. By latching onto God’s grace and mercy, we can be freed. By knowing Jesus Christ as his mother does, we can know joy.
With each of Mary’s seven sorrows, we will look at a particular temptation which, if we succumb to it, may prevent us from experiencing God’s great mercy. We will reflect on a particular virtue exemplified by Mary through which we may allow the grace of God to see our sorrow as a path to freedom and joy.
Seven Sorrows:
- The Prophecy of Simeon
- The Flight into Egypt
- The Loss of Jesus in the Temple
- Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary
- Jesus Dies on the Cross
- Jesus is Pierced with a Lance and Lowered into Mary’s Arms
- Jesus is Buried in the Tomb
Questions to Ponder:
How have sorrows in my life helped me to turn more fully to God and rely on his grace?
What are some ways that I have recognized the redemptive value of my suffering?
Prayer
O sorrowful Mother, I turn to you in total trust. You suffered the sharpest pains in life, watching your Son die upon the Cross, and yet you remained by Him to the end. Look with favor upon me, a poor sinner, and obtain for me from your Son all the graces I need to endure the sufferings God allows me to face.
Hail Mary, full of grace…
Jesus, I trust in You!
Day 2 – The Prophecy of Simeon
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation” Luke 2:29-30
The first of Mary’s sorrows takes place as she and Joseph, according to the law of Israel, travel to Jerusalem in order to present the infant Jesus in the temple for consecration to the Lord. Present in the temple is Simeon, a righteous man, to whom God had promised to reveal the long-awaited Messiah. Filled with the Holy Spirit at the presence of Jesus, Simeon takes the child in his arms [Luke 2:22-34] “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
Simeon’s simple words threaten the peace that had reigned in her heart. His open-ended prediction leaves room for all sorts of suppositions and worst-case scenarios to play out in her mind and to stir up worry.
Worry.
How it can steal our peace and roil our hearts! We all experience it. It comes about from a combination of love and uncertainty. We desire something good, but don’t know whether we can attain it or keep it in the face of dangers or opposition from all around. Worry. It steals our peace and serenity.
Worry doesn’t come from God. It comes from our own insecurity, from seeing reality in an incomplete way. It comes from focusing on the wrong things. The better part that Christ wants for you is peace, serenity, fulfillment, and joy. Not worry. Not fear. Not insecurity, bitterness, or dread.
The Virgin Mary experiences the temptation to worry just as we do. But she doesn’t let worry rule her and take away the better part. She keeps her heart focused on the Kingdom of God. By reflecting on the past, she derives the wisdom to see God’s loving care and providence not only for herself and her family but for His chosen people; by living in the present, she chooses to live in the reality of God’s goodness, the now of His presence rather than speculating on an unknowable future; by trusting in God’s Providence, she sets aside all worry. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me,” says our Lord in John 14:1.
By faith, Mary transforms her anxiety and worries into a deeper union with her Son and a greater confidence in God’s Providence. With her help, we can do the same. There is no worry that cannot be dissipated by God’s grace and a deeper trust in Him. “Jesus, I trust in you!”
Questions to Ponder:
What do I worry about, and do I trust God enough to relinquish everything to Him? How can I grow in trust?
Do I pray for the gift of wisdom to allow me to keep perspective and peace even in the midst of trials?
Prayer
Blessed Mother, your life was never free from the temptation to worry. From the angel Gabriel’s announcement until the end of your earthly pilgrimage, so much more remained unknown than known. With Simeon’s prophecy of contradiction for your Son and a sword for you, the whirling winds of worry threatened to steal your peace. But you kept your heart and mind fixed on the Lord’s faithful love to his people in the past, his guiding presence in the present, and his Divine Providence watching over the future. Blessed Virgin Mary, teach me to trust! In the midst of my sorrows and anxieties, help me to find the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding. By believing and trusting in the Lord as you did, I know that my life, too, will be blessed. Bring me, sweet Mother, to my eternal home.
Hail Mary, full of grace…
Jesus, I trust in You!
Day 3 – The Flight into Egypt
“When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son.” Hosea 11:1
The second of Mary’s sorrows begins with the visit of the Magi. When King Herod hears of their request to pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews, his security and power as a ruler is greatly threatened so he plots for its removal. After visiting the Holy Family and paying homage to Jesus, they depart and “behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.’ Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt” (Mt 2:13-14).
God’s ways are not man’s ways. Security does not come from the power of this world, nor from its esteem and comforts. Instead of power, God chooses persecution. Flight, not fight. His divine Son becomes a refugee, an outcast, an immigrant. Joseph and Mary leave behind the security of their homeland to cast out into the unknown. They brave the physical privations of a long journey through desert wastelands. They face the emotional privations of being separated from all that is familiar and loved. They are immigrants. They enter a country with a new language that they do not speak, with different traditions, religious practices and cultural expectations that they don’t understand. In some sense they are political refugees, fleeing Israel with the constant fear of being discovered by Herod’s men.
Mary has lost all that is familiar and secure. Her sorrow is real. It is deep.
God leads her through a real desert and a spiritual one. She lets go of the various forms of human security – creature comforts, the esteem of others, her own self-sufficiency. She is not merely forced to do this; Mary embraces and chooses to relinquish those things that could never really provide security anyway, thus growing in the virtues that lead to security.
The virtue of temperance allows her to let go of the simple comforts because she would not let anything come between her and Jesus. She will embrace any privation out of love for him.
The virtue of humility allows her, as an immigrant in a foreign land, to base her worth and dignity on God’s love for her, on her God-given dignity.
Faith allows her to trust in God’s plan and Providence in the midst of this dark valley. The Virgin Mary grasps onto her Lord more firmly, placing her security in God alone. He is her rock, her fortress.
Questions to Ponder:
Where do I find security, and in what ways can I place greater security in God?
Do I have compassion for those who are rejected, unwanted, or on the fringes of society? Do my own insecurities prevent me from associating with them?
Prayer
Blessed Virgin Mary, you were tempted to put your security in familiar comforts, in the esteem of those around you, or in your own understanding and abilities but you had the wisdom to seek security in the Lord alone. Help me to humble my pride, to laugh away my vanity, and to embrace privations so that I, too, can trust in the Lord alone. He is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. Mother, teach me to trust. Mother, teach me to reach out compassionately to the outcasts on the fringes of society, the refugees and immigrants, the unwanted, the lost. All of them are beloved in the eyes of God. Teach me to see them and to love them as he does.
Hail Mary, full of grace …
Jesus, I trust in You!
Day 4 – The Loss of Jesus in the Temple
“And suddenly there will come to the Temple the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.” Malachi 3:1
The loss of a child is the greatest sorrow a parent can experience. When Jesus was 12, Luke tells us that the family made their annual trip to Jerusalem for Passover. One day into the return trip, both Mary and Joseph realize that Jesus is not in the caravan heading back home. They return to Jerusalem, and after three days of frantic searching, find him in the Temple sitting among the teachers, engaged in a lively exchange. “When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.’ And he said to them, ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them.” (Luke 2:41-50)
Many readers are surprised at Jesus’ seemingly flippant response to his mother. He was twelve, on the cusp of adulthood, flexing his independence and, let’s face it, generally behaving like a 12-year old boy. Mary and Jesus are at a pivotal moment in their relationship, the close mother-son relationship they have shared to this point is giving way as he takes a step towards manhood. In their case, this separation is also the harbinger of things to come, a prelude to further separation and sorrow.
Mary’s sorrow is twofold, first at the physical loss of her child and secondly at his response which she “did not understand”. Because she loved him, she had searched so frantically for him. Could he not see that? Did he not perceive her concern? Yes, Jesus does recognize her sorrow, but he is already trying to move her heart to the deeper joy and her deeper calling. Mary was overwhelmed by the loss; Jesus wants her to move forward with him to what is gained: the Father’s house.
If we lose Jesus, all is lost. But when we find him, when we return to him through prayer and the sacrament of reconciliation, we gain more than we had ever lost. This is the experience of every Christian. We are sinners who have experienced the forgiveness and mercy of God the Father time and time again, and through that unconditional love have come to realize that the best place to be is “in my Father’s house.” Jesus knew this. He reminded his mother of this. He wants to lead you and me to this: to be in the Father’s house.
Mary’s sorrow is transformed into joy through her meditation on the beginning of Jesus’s mission. The words of the prophets are coming true. Jesus is beginning to show his true colors, and she feels in her own soul a profound joy in the imminent redemption of her people. We too ask for the grace to apprehend the truth in our lives, to see everything from the Father’s perspective, and to ponder all these things in our hearts with the Holy Spirit’s gift of counsel that guides fortitude and guards against rashness.
Questions to Ponder:
How have I experienced separation from Jesus in my own life?
What has helped me the most to strengthen my relationship with Christ?
Prayer
Blessed Virgin Mary, teach me to love Jesus more, to place my trust in him. Help me to find Him in prayer, Scripture, the Eucharist, and the least of my brethren. When I see the hurt and pain in the lives of those who are lost, let me be your heart and hands and feet to reach out through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy to bring them home, to the Father’s house. May I love with your Immaculate Heart, and with the Sacred Heart of your divine Son. Amen.
Hail Mary full of grace …
Jesus, I trust in you!
Day 5 – Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Matthew 16:24
Mary is a true mother. She understands all our pain because she has experienced it first. She helps us to transition from sorrow to joy, because she has accomplished that first. And because she ponders all these things in her heart, what happens to her son, even on the Way of the Cross, does not steal her peace.
She sees her son suffering, rejected, and with no escape. He is disfigured, beaten, bloody, marring all the beautiful memories she had treasured in her heart. New brutal memories crowd out everything beautiful.
Every motherly instinct in Mary drives her to reach out to her son, to touch him, to protect him from more hurt, to embrace and console him.
Yet there is more at work here than a mother’s instinct: there is an important lesson of faith for every follower of Jesus in this fourth sorrow of Mary, as suffering son and sorrowing mother meet on the Way of the Cross. The Virgin Mary shows us that one of the secrets to taking up our cross and unlocking joy is in the encounter. If we focus on the suffering, we balk; if we focus on Jesus, we can do everything. Close to his heart, we can experience calm amid chaos, joy during suffering.
Mary learns through this sorrow that her Son is “making all things new” (Rev 21:5). She recognizes that he has embraced his Cross—literally—and that he has chosen this path of redemption, that he wants his Father’s will and our redemption more than he fears death or desires life. That is PASSION! Mary glimpses something of the bigger picture: the silent lamb led to slaughter (cf. Is 53:7, Acts 8:32). The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. A new Passover, a new covenant is on the horizon. All these things she perceives dimly, in the light of faith. By faith, we, too, can begin to see on the dark horizon of pain and suffering a hint of the Son-rise’s rays.
We love only to the degree that we are willing to suffer. Precisely because Mary encounters Love and her faith enables her to see beyond the present moment, her sorrow on the streets of Jerusalem teaches us a lesson as she learns it from her Son: embrace the cross. What Mary found on the Way of the Cross is that an encounter with Jesus on the deepest level, the level that leads to the profoundest intimacy and union becomes the level where sorrow is transformed into joy.
Questions to Ponder:
When I face shame for His name, do I pretend not to know him or do I push through the crowds as Mary did, to accompany my Lord wherever He may go?
When I experience the burdens of family members or friends whose mistakes and messy lives seem to drag me down, do I turn to the Virgin Mary and to Jesus Christ for strength?
Prayer
Dear Mother Mary, help me to walk alongside your Son as you did. Life is messy, and you did not find your consolation and joy in having everything work out according to your plans, but in embracing God’s plan. Deepen my trust in God the Father. Strengthen my awareness of Jesus by my side as I take up my cross each day to follow him. Inflame my heart with the Holy Spirit’s love, so that his gift of fortitude may make me strong in the face of every temptation to love less, to stop short, to bail out of difficult situations. Blessed Mother, teach me how to love better! Amen.
Hail Mary full of grace …
Jesus, I trust in you!
Day 6 – Jesus Dies on the Cross
“So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” John 16:22
The last four sorrows of Mary surrounding the passion and death of her Son draw us deeply into the mystery of encounter and accompaniment. Mary recognizes that she cannot change all the circumstances and save her Son, but she can do something. She can accompany him. The Blessed Virgin Mary encountered her Son Jesus Christ more deeply than any other human being and so, more than anyone else she was able to accompany him in life and death. She knows him as only a mother can know her son. Every quirk, every thought, every motivation. At the foot of the Cross, she draws other women who have experienced the life-transforming love of her Son into this ministry of accompaniment.
Mary looks on the scene. There’s really nothing she can say, nothing she can do. She sees his humiliation, stripped of his clothing and his human dignity, no longer preaching and powerful, but suffering, dying. She resists the temptation to despair, to let the hope in God’s promises die in her heart as she sees the Messiah expiring on the Cross.
Mary endures a difficult exchange at the foot of the Cross. Jesus said to her, “Behold your son” (John 19:26). She trades her perfect son, the son of God, for John. This John who, like us, was a sinner, a “son of thunder” (Mark 3:17), imperfect in so many ways. And in that exchange, Mary also acquires us. We come with our complaints, our whining, our imperfections. But she loves us, accompanies us, and excels at lifting us up to holiness in her Son.
Suffering prepared her heart to embrace all of us in our imperfections and misery. Mary sorrows. Yet her sorrow is not self-pity. She channels the sorrow into accompaniment of her Son, and by the will of Jesus her accompaniment has become accompaniment of us all. She has become the mother of all Christians, of all who suffer. She knows the depths of sorrow and she knows how to be with us, how to console us, to unite our suffering to her Son, to make sense of our tribulations. She is our mother and the model for the whole Church, and she shows us how to suffer in faith and charity, with hope.
We cannot fix all the problems in our world, but we can accompany others in their sorrows. The suffering of a mother in seeing her dying child is the greatest of sorrows. Yet even here, in this deepest distress, we learn that death can become life, darkness turns into light, and sorrow can be transformed into joy.
Questions to Ponder:
In what ways do I accompany others and console them in their sorrows?
Have I embraced the Blessed Virgin Mary as my mother? How could I ask her for the help I need to follow Jesus and be his disciple?
Prayer
Dear Blessed Mother, there is no sorrow like your sorrow, looking upon your son Jesus as he dies. Move me beyond curiosity; shake me out of my dull indifference. Help me to recognize the depth of Jesus’s love for me, shown in every blow of the whip, in each bloody footstep, at every fall of the hammer driving in the nails, as he is lifted up, at each tortuous breath, in every word he utters in those last moments. Mary, move my heart! Let it beat in unison with your Immaculate Heart! Let it be pierced with His Sacred Heart! Let me love as you love, let me love what you love!
Hail Mary full of grace…
Jesus, I trust in you!
Day 7 – Jesus is Pierced with a Lance and Lowered from the Cross into Mary’s Arms
“Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.” Is 53:11
We cannot eliminate suffering in this life, but we can find meaning in it when we encounter Jesus Christ. Through that encounter with God who is love, we accompany and are accompanied, authentic joy fills our hearts, and even death itself becomes the doorway to life. Our ultimate bliss is not in this world, but in the life to come. These spiritual truths are what we discover in the sixth sorrow of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as she stands at the foot of the Cross and sees her son dead, now pierced with a lance and lowered from the cross into her arms.
Pierced, out of love for us. As Mary stands with her tear-streaked face upturned to her Son on the Cross, the full weight of her Son’s life trajectory hits her. He had foretold this. The prophets had foretold this. Mary knew the scriptures, all the prophecies. Jesus had said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, then I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). The barbarous cruelty of this Cross was shameful and revolting; his friends had abandoned him, the Jewish leaders repudiated him, and the guards scorned him. How was he drawing people to himself? Yet there was something more in that prophecy. Something that Mary was still formulating in her heart, intuiting that more was yet to come. Yes, we naturally shy away from suffering, yet we are also drawn toward love, and no greater love has any man than to lay down his life for a friend (cf. John 15:13). Was this what Jesus was doing? Showing us a love so great that none could remain indifferent? Giving us a trophy of the triumph of love over evil and hatred?
As darkness blots out the beauty of the years spent with Jesus, Mary is tempted to despair and unbounded grief compounded by a sense of abandonment and fear of an uncertain future. Holiness does not mean that we never experience temptation. Holiness does not mean that we are not human or that we don’t feel and experience passions in our own heart. Holiness means to transform the sorrow, the passions, the darkness—through faith in God—into light. It’s Mary’s internal attitudes that bring God’s light into the dark places, overcoming the temptations.
Mary accompanies her Son even in death. A love as strong as death, said Solomon (cf. Songs 8:6). To accompany those that we love, even in death, is an act of love. It is something that soothes the heart and is part of the grieving process. Mary teaches us not to turn away our faces from death but to open our hearts to the deeper reality that God wants to teach us through death. This is what will burst forth from the Resurrection of Christ. Death is not the end. Death does not have the final say, because her Son will triumph over death. In that moment, as she holds her Son, she feels all the darkness. But even then, in accompanying her son, she is beginning to look forward to the power of his Resurrection.
Questions to Ponder:
What are some instances where I have recognized signs of hope, conversion, and rebirth even in dark situations?
Do I base it on merely a cheerful disposition, or on a profound faith, hope, and love that come from prayer and communion with Jesus Christ?
Prayer
Virgin Mary, Mother of Sorrows, you experienced the very depths of human sorrow. You watched rough soldiers not only killing your Son, but desecrating his lifeless body with the blow of a lance through the heart. Though He could not feel that, you did. As you held his bloodied corpse in your arms, you resisted temptations to despair and unbounded grief. You latched onto hope in his promises, stirred up gratitude for his life and remembrance of the good he left behind. You recognized the redemptive power of his sacrifice for our sins. Without the night, we’d never see the beauty of the stars. Mary, help me to see like that! Mary, help me to love like that! Show me how to trust, to hope, to forgive! Do not let my heart drown in sorrow, but lead me always to a deeper faith in your Son, Jesus Christ.
Hail Mary full of grace …
Jesus, I trust in you!
Day 8 – Jesus is Buried in the Tomb
“I will heal them and lead them; I will give full comfort to them and to those who mourn for them, I, the Creator, who gave them life.” Isaiah 57:18
The Blessed Virgin Mary’s seventh and final sorrow is the burial of her Son in the tomb. We have entered into the sorrows of the Mary knowing that through them we are not mucking in the misery, but rather coming into a deeper joy. There is no human life without sorrow. We all experience travails, miseries, difficulties, sad moments, and frustrations; that’s just part and parcel of human life. But the beauty of looking at the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to see how she was able to transform her sorrows—which when you look on the scale of things were very significant—into the greatest of joys.
What distinguishes this sorrow from the preceding ones is the definitive nature of the loss. Whatever God has in store, she will never be able to go back to the way things were before, at Nazareth, with Jesus there. She has to release that, to allow herself to accept that loss, in order to receive the new gift God wants to give. This is not easy. And when we are faced with detachment in our own lives, Mary shows us the way.
The Virgin Mary shows us that happiness doesn’t consist in keeping control, but in relinquishing it to the Father. Though she doesn’t understand it, she trusts in His plan. Once again, she says her “yes” to God, entrusting her Son to the Father as well as herself, knowing He will care for her.
Though her sorrow is still fresh, Mary recognizes that she has been given a new mission. She is now mother of John and of all Jesus’s followers. She is Queen of the Apostles. God will work through her to be the instrument to bring together all the Apostles after the death of our Lord. The first chapter of Acts tells us, “All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus” (Acts 1:14). Mary became the catalyst for the joining together of the Church. She took on her new mission, she took on a new responsibility.
The Virgin Mary’s sorrows prepared her for this new mission. As a witness to Jesus’s life in the most intimate way, she also is able to witness to the transformative power of the Good News. In the years after Jesus’s Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, she continues to gather, form, pray with, and encourage the disciples (cf. Acts 1:14). As it was for Mary, witnessing to Christ’s love in this life will be our greatest glory in the life to come.
Questions to Ponder:
What are some instances where I have learned how to let go of people, situations and control, leaving all in the hands of God the Father?
How can I grow in my trust in him?
Prayer
Virgin Mary, Mother of Sorrows, but also Mother of Joy, you wrapped your Son in love before wrapping him in the Shroud. Teach me to let go and trust in the Father’s plan. Show me how to hold on to faith, hope and love. Guide me on the Way—your Son—toward the life He has in store for those who love him and keep his commandments. Mary, I renew again today my trust in the Father. By following your example, guide me through sorrows to deeper joy in my life, and to the happiness of eternal life forever in heaven. Amen.
Hail Mary…
Jesus, I trust in you!
Day 9 – The Path from Sorrow to Joy
As we end our novena, here are seven principles which pave the path from sorrow to joy:
- Every human being desires happiness, a joy that lasts. More than a passing feeling of euphoria, joy is a passion or emotion that stems from possessing something good in the right way. Ultimately, joy comes from knowing that I am loved, and loving in return. Joy is a fruit of love.
- Because we love, we suffer. Love makes us vulnerable, opening us to disappointment, pain, and sorrow. To try to protect oneself from suffering by avoiding love leads to even greater pain, because we were made for love, and its absence brings existential anguish.
- Suffering and sorrow without meaning, without God, lead to despair. If we suffer focused on self, we are lost in our immanence, filled with emptiness, and the pain will consume us and lead to bitterness. If we suffer with others or for others, we can discover a certain transcendence, but it is still incomplete and open to disappointment.
- If we suffer with Christ and for Christ, we unlock the transcendence that leads to meaning, purpose, completion, and joy. It brings us to a deep level of intimacy with Christ, who chose to suffer for me.
- Paradoxical as it may sound, suffering and sorrow are not incompatible with joy. Suffering and sorrow can lead to greater and deeper joy. In our human experience, we know that painful exercise can lead to health, and a discomforting operation can restore health. Through Mary’s spiritual experience, we see the pathway from sorrow to joy.
- Jesus is the cause of our joy and Mary leads us to him.
- We are free to choose the things that lead to joy—or to remain in our misery. Using our freedom wisely will lead us to choose love, always giving, always in thanksgiving. Prayer keeps us united with God. Concrete acts of love and dedication—such as a consecration of your family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of Sorrows—help to solidify that daily choice to love.
The following prayer is the novena prayer honoring the seven sorrows of Mary and approved by Pope Pius VII in 1815.
- O God, come to my assistance;
- O Lord, make haste to help me.
- Glory be to the Father …
- As it was in the beginning …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in affliction of your tender heart at the prophecy of the holy and aged Simeon. O dearest Mother, by your heart so afflicted, implore for me the virtue of humility and the gift of the holy fear of God.
Hail Mary …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the anguish of your most affectionate heart during the flight into Egypt and your sojourn there. O dearest Mother, by your anxious heart so troubled, obtain for me the virtue of generosity, especially toward the poor, and the gift of piety.
Hail Mary …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in those anxieties which tried your troubled heart at the loss of your beloved Child Jesus. O dearest Mother, by your exceedingly troubled heart implore for me the virtue of chastity and the gift of knowledge.
Hail Mary …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, on account of the horror with which your mother-heart was stricken when meeting Jesus bearing the Cross. O dearest Mother, by your exceedingly oppressed heart implore for me the virtue of patience and the gift of fortitude.
Hail Mary …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, on account of that martyrdom which tortured your generous heart at the death-agony of Jesus. O dearest Mother, through this thy martyred heart, implore for me the virtue of temperance and the gift of counsel.
Hail Mary …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the wounding of your tender heart, by the thrust of the lance that opened the side of Jesus and pierced His most adorable Heart. O dearest Mother, by this vicarious transfixion of thy own heart, implore for me the virtue of brotherly love and the gift of understanding.
Hail Mary …
I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, on account of that agony which racked your most loving heart at the burial of Jesus. O dearest Mother, through this extreme torment that filled thy burdened heart, obtain for me the virtue of zeal and the gift of wisdom.
Hail Mary …
V. Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray: Let intercession be made for us, we beseech you, O Lord Jesus Christ, now and at the hour of our death, before the throne of your mercy, by the Blessed Virgin Mary, your Mother, whose most holy soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow in the hour of your bitter passion. Through you, O Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns world without end. Amen.
