“At the cross her station keeping
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus at the last,
Through her soul, of joy bereaved
Bowed with anguish, deeply grieved
Now at length the sword had passed.”

Yesterday, we celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (Triumph of the Cross). The Church invited us to reflect on the meaning of the Holy Cross. The Cross is the symbol of our salvation, of Divine love and compassion. Jesus Christ the perfect sacrifice as the Lamb of God died on this cross to reconcile us with the Father.

Today our hearts unite with that of Mary as she stood at the foot of the cross faithfully. We are challenged to view the cross from a different perspective, that of Mary the Mother of Sorrows as she grieves and mourns the death of her son. Mary’s sorrows can be metaphors for the hardships we experience in our own life. By uniting ourselves with Mary we find courage, strength, and wisdom to faithfully live out our life with trust in the God who is always with us. These painful experiences of Mary if we allow them can help us find meaning and inspiration.

In these sorrows we see how Mary questioned what was confusing and unclear, how she reflected on her life experience in order to find meaning in them. In Mary, we see a great amount of resiliency, how she was sustained by her faith, and how her deep love for her son strength and courage to enter into and endure her suffering. Today, as we walk with Mary in her sorrows we discover that we are never alone in what seems most difficult in our life. In Mary, we have a faithful mother, a mentor, a sister, a model. We are called to celebrate and remember the sorrows that shaped her life and we celebrate her unquestionable gift of compassion and trust. Mary went through bitter suffering as she stood beneath the cross, but she did so with determination and fortitude. She stood as a warrior determined to be there for her son. When love is the motivation, one can wait at the foot of the cross for a very long time. Mary shows us how to do that with inner strength.

… may I feel sorrow with Jesus in sorrow,
be anguished with Jesus in anguish,
experience tears and deep grief
because of all the afflictions with Jesus endures for me…

May Mary the Mother of Sorrows, who followed Jesus faithfully to the end at Calvary and shared with her whole being in his passion and death be our companion on our journey. At the foot of the cross, Mary was the Church, she was us, May she intercedes for us especially at the hour of our death.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring with your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or even your own; if you can dance with the wilderness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being a human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true. I want to know if you can risk disappointing another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, your and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “YES.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children. It doesn’t matter to me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself; and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, May 1994
©1995 by Oriah House, from “Dreams Of Desire” Published by Mountain Dreaming

1. I am pleased to offer you my cordial greeting, which I extend to all the Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, as you hold the General Chapter of your institute.

You wished to begin your Chapter with a Eucharistic celebration at the tomb of your foundress, Mother Elisabetta Renzi, whom I had the joy of proclaiming blessed 10 years ago. Her spiritual presence among you and her heavenly intercession give your work the authentic inspiration that stems from your original charism. This reference to your roots will enlighten your discernment about the future progress of your congregation, which is celebrating its 160th anniversary on the threshold of the Year 2000.

“Towards the Third Millennium, with the Joy of the Risen One, to Build Unity in Diversity”: this is the theme you have chosen for your General Chapter. For you too, as for the whole Church, the passage from the second to the third millennium suggests a new call from God, in whose hands lies the future of every human situation.

It is very significant that the Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows are advancing towards the third millennium “with the joy of the Risen One”. Who, in fact, better than Mary most holy, so intimately united with the mystery of the Crucified One, knew the joy of his Resurrection? And who better than she can communicate to you, her daughters, this joy, that it may fill your hearts and your witness?

2. This immersion in the dynamism of Easter is the fruit of contemplative prayer, which you rightly consider as the soul of your every action. It is from contemplation, that, together with the primordial gift of the Spirit, all gifts, and in particular the gift of the consecrated life, take their origin (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata, n. 23).

Everyday in the Eucharistic celebration, you renew your communion with Christ crucified and risen, and in adoration you experience the joy of abiding in his love (cf. Jn 15: 9). Especially in these intense spiritual moments, you realize the longing of your foundress: “I would like my whole being to be silent and everything in me to adore, in order to enter more and more into Jesus and to be so full of him, that I can give him to those poor souls who do not know the gift of God”.

3. Mission flows from contemplation. Before being distinguished by exterior works, it is carried out by making Christ present in the world through personal witness. This, dear sisters, is your primary task as consecrated persons! Even your life-style should manifest the ideal you profess, presenting itself as an eloquent, even if often silent, preaching of the Gospel.

When part of the founding charism, the witness of life and the works of the apostolate and of human advancement are equally necessary: both in fact reveal Christ and his saving action.

“Religious life, moreover, continues the mission of Christ with another feature specifically its own: fraternal life in community for the sake of the mission. Thus, men and women religious will be all the more committed to the apostolate the more personal their dedication to the Lord Jesus is, the more fraternal their community life, and the more ardent their involvement in the institute’s specific mission” (Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata, n. 72). The whole Church counts greatly on the testimony of communities filled “with joy and with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13: 52).

4. At a time of profound change, Mother Elisabetta Renzi was led by divine Providence to perceive, with prophetic insight, some of the most acute needs in the society of her day. She thus realized that the Lord was giving her a new call. It was as if God himself had placed her close to the problems of the young girls of her land. Her rule of life was to abandon herself to God, so that he would decide the steps and times for the development of her work as he wished (cf. Homily for the beatification, 18 June 1989, n. 6; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 10 July 1989, p. 4). Your foundress felt strongly called to bear witness to God’s preferential love for his smallest and most needy creatures: and she responded with prophetic understanding, becoming a mother, educator and care-giver.

The Church has always considered education to be an essential element of her mission, and the Synod on consecrated life strongly confirmed this. Therefore, I warmly invite you to treasure your founding charism and your traditions, knowing that preferential love for the poor finds a special application in the service of education and instruction (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata, n. 97).

5. I was pleased to learn that your institute has sought the collaboration of many lay people, who share not only in your work but also in the motives and inspiration itself that underlie it. I willingly encourage these forms of communion and cooperation, which can give rise to the spread of a fruitful spirituality beyond the confines of the institute and, at the same time, promote an ever more intense cooperation between consecrated persons and the laity in view of the institute’s mission (cf. ibid., n. 55).

6. “To Build Unity in Diversity”. This objective summarizes your commitment on the threshold of the Year 2000, showing that it is in harmony with the whole Church. She, in fact, feels called to become a sign and instrument of unity in a world that increasingly brings different human realities into contact and dialogue. You experience this challenge within your own religious family, which in recent years has been enriched by the presence of persons from different countries and even from different continents.

This is a typical sign of the times in which we live, and you have decided to welcome it and to view it in terms of the Gospel as a call to a deeper and greater communion. “The more excellent way” (1 Cor 12: 31) to be followed is always that of charity, which brings all differences into harmony and imbues them all with the strength of mutual support in the apostolic effort.

“Placed as they are within the world’s different societies societies frequently marked by conflicting passions and interests, seeking unity but uncertain about the ways to attain it communities of consecrated life, where persons of different ages, languages and cultures meet as brothers and sisters, are signs that dialogue is always possible and that communion can bring differences into harmony” (Apostolic Exhortation, Vita consecrata, n. 51).

7. Dear sisters, as my final word I wish to echo the motto of your blessed foundress: “Ardere et Lucere”. May every Sister of Our Lady of Sorrows, as well as the whole institute, burn and shine with divine love, so that they can transmit it to their brothers and sisters, especially those in greatest poverty, wherever Providence calls you to live and work.

May Our Lady of Sorrows constantly watch over you and obtain the fruits that you await from this Chapter. May you also be accompanied in your work by my Blessing, which I affectionately impart to all the sisters.

From Castel Gandolfo, 22 July 1999.

JOHN PAUL II

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any–lifted from the no

of all nothing–human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

E. E. Cummings

As human beings, we always demand standards from others that we never demand from ourselves. We condemn other people’s shortcomings and sins without even realizing that we have the same faults. Jesus today is telling us – point blank-that none of us is perfect and judgement is not ours. In this gospel passage, Jesus is challenging us to extend mercy to our neighbor so that we might experience God’s merciful love like that woman in the Gospel.

I am humbled by this kind of love, a love that gives me freedom and challenges me to a sinless life, as was this gospel woman. I experience over and over this healing that is extended to me whenever I go to confession. The pressure of sin is taken off my heart and I am given a chance to reclaim the peace of Christ. When we stand before God, our life is forever changed – that is if we choose to be changed by His love. I think Jesus left the woman with a choice that day-to become more. To become more is the challenge I face every time I leave the confessional.

Lord Jesus Christ, I thank You for loving me even though sometimes I do not deserve Your love. Thank You for Your unconditional mercy. During this time of Lent give me the strength and grace to overcome my weakness and shortcomings so that I can become more of who You want me to become.

In preparation for my final profession, I prayed with Psalm 139. This is one of my favorite Psalms. During prayer I found it so hard to just say a mere thank you to God – I felt that He deserves more than that. I asked myself over and over again – How can I thank God for the kind of love and grace He has shown me in my life? He has done so much for me! I found myself writing these words in my diary. 

What shall I return to God? 

What returns shall I make? 

What returns shall I offer? 

For blessings of every kind, from Him that I have received. 

What returns to the Lord shall I make? 

What returns to the Lord shall I give? 

For blessings of every kind, from Him I have received. 

“Standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, where is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” [Jn. 19:25-7]

The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows invites us to reflect on the suffering of Mary as she witnessed the passion and death of her son our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a day that we remember in a special way the sorrows in Mary’s life :
1) The prophecy of Simeon,
2) The flight into Egypt,
3) The loss of the Child Jesus at Jerusalem,
4) Meeting Jesus on the road to Calvary,
5) The standing at the foot of the Cross,
6) The descent of Jesus from the Cross, and
7) The burial of Jesus.

What is it like to hold the dead body of your son in your arms? How does it feel like to watch your child being tortured, lifeless, broken, and sufffering? It is hard to imagine, yet this is the reality that Mary went through. This is the unspeakable pain she went through. Today, we call to mind these sorrows, and pray that Mary may help us embrace our pain, our suffering, our sorrows with a hope that knows and believes that “Alleluia dwells beyond calvary”

Reflecting on Mary’s pain gives me a deeper respect and love for her. She holds our sorrow, pain, and suffering in her arms. She gives us the assurance that ” Without Good Friday there is no Easter; without the crucifixion there is no Alleluia”

Mary given all the suffering she went through in her life, she did not give in to bitterness. She did not allow pain to consume her. We see that in her song of praise The Magnificat, ” My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior….” Mary was able to reconcile the painful and joyous moments of her life. Isn’t this what we are all called to? Isn’t this the Paschal mystery – Christ has died, Christ is risen.?

We brought to the altar gifts which are symbols of our lands and of our heritage: