Our Lady of Sorrows

The Solemnity of Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15

“There stood by the Cross of Jesus his mother Mary, who knew grief and was a Lady of Sorrows. She is our special patroness, a woman who bore much she could not understand and who stood fast. To her many sons and daughters, whose devotions ought to bring them often to her side, she tells much of this daily cross and its daily hope” (Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross, 8:120).

When deciding on a patron for the Congregation of Holy Cross, our founder Blessed Basil Moreau selected Our Lady of Sorrows.

Moreau’s original vision was that the Congregation of Holy Cross be one community of priests, brothers and sisters living and working together in imitation of the Holy Family. He consecrated the priests to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the sisters to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the brothers to Saint Joseph, but he placed the entire Congregation under the patronage of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Moreau often stressed the importance of conforming one’s entire life to Christ, which Mary models through her Seven Sorrows. He said, “It is (in her sorrows) that we shall see to what extent she has loved us! She stood at the foot of the cross, among the executioners and soldiers, so close to her dying Son that no detail of his death could escape her. … What did she do in this circumstance, so painful for her heart, being minister before the altar on which the sacrifice of our redemption was accomplished? Truly, she fulfills fully her part in the work of Christ, to ‘fill up, in her own flesh, those things that are lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, which is the Church.’”

HAPPY FEAST DAY TO ONE AND ALL