Our Lady of Sorrows Speaks To Our Needs

Mr Laramie Hirsch's meditation on today's Feast.

From Forge and Anvil

Today, September 15th, we are well past the halfway point, here in what is St. Michael’s Lent.  And today is a rather special day for me, as it is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, a devotion I’ve grown particularly interested in these recent years.

First, let me get your attention.  What do you get from devotions to Our Lady of Sorrows?  You get the following package:

We learn from St. Brigid of Sweden that for those who pray seven Hail Mary’s a day and meditate upon her seven sorrows, you get the following:

1. I [Mary] will grant peace to their families.

2. They will be enlightened about the Divine Mysteries.

3. I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work.

4. I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my divine Son or the sanctification of their souls.

5. I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.

6. I will visibly help them at the moment of their death, they will see the face of their Mother.

7. I have obtained from my divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors, will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness since all their sins will be forgiven and my Son and I will be their eternal consolation and joy.

Wouldn’t it be nice to better understand the Divine Mysteries?  What would you do for a get-out-of-purgatory card?  Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows is your ticket.  But it doesn’t stop there.  We learn from Saint Alphonsus Maria Liguori that Our Lord spoke to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary about these matters.  He said to her that:

1. Those who before their death invoke the Blessed Mother in the name of her sorrows will obtain true repentance of all their sins.

2. God will protect in their tribulations all who remember this devotion, and He will protect them especially at the hour of death.

3. He will press upon their minds the remembrance of His passion, and they will have their reward for it in Heaven.

4. He will commit such devout souls to the hands of Mary so that she can obtain for these souls all the graces she wants to lavish upon them.

Important For Our Time

Back on November 28, 1981, Our Lady managed to appear to some teenagers in Kibeho, Rwanda.  She said that it would be very important to pray the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows.  Furthermore, Our Lady said that “a river of blood” would flow across Rwanda unless the people stopped harboring hate and practiced love and charity for each other.  Sufficed to say, the majority never listened–they never do–and we were graced with that early 1990s event known as the Rwandan Genocide.

“The Holy Virgin insisted on the need for prayer. She said that the world is bad. It is necessary to pray, to pray, to pray a lot for this world that is bad, to pray for sinners, to pray for their conversion. She insisted a lot on the need for conversion: Convert to God! Convert to God! Convert to God! While saying that people don’t respect God’s commands, that people have a hard heart, she also asked us to meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary and to recite it every day. She also taught us the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows. She asked us to pray it every Tuesday and Friday. She asked us to obey the Church, to love God in truth, and to love our neighbor in humility and simplicity. She spoke of the need for mortification, a spirit of penitence and sacrifice. She also spoke of the need for suffering, to bear our sufferings every day. She said that no one enters heaven without suffering. She also told us that acts of charity for the poor make us beautiful flowers that God likes. She wanted a chapel to be constructed here in Kibeho, so everyone would remember her visit and pray for the Church and religious. Holy Mary spoke to us in Kinyarwanda [the language of Rwanda] with her very soft voice.”

To all of this, Our Lady added: “When I tell you this, I am not addressing myself strictly to you, child, but I am making this appeal to the world.”  She describes the world as being in revolt against God, and that the world itself is on the edge of catastrophe.

So, with that in mind, I would like to recommend to you, dear readers, the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows.  I can think of no more an appropriate devotion to keep during this age of Judas.