Our Lady's Tears

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Devotion to Mary's Sorrows is sanctioned by the Church and these prayers can be found in the Missal and Breviary. Special devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows, depicted above, is celebrated on two special feast days: the Friday before Good Friday and on September 15th.

Other terms are used such as Sorrowful Mother, Our Lady of Tears, Our Lady's Dolors, Dolorous Mother. I have decided to stick with the english term sorrows instead of dolors.

The Catholic Church has also enriched the devotion to Our Lady's sorrows with indulgences for the pious recitation of the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows, and also the Chaplet of Our Lady's Tears. Seven of Mary's Sorrows have been chosen for special veneration. These are the same sorrows of the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows and are as follows:

The prophecy of Simeon
The flight into Egypt
The loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple
Mary meets Jesus on the way to Calvary
Jesus dies on the Cross
Mary receives the dead body of Jesus in her arms
Jesus is placed in the tomb.

My next several postings will be on these seven sorrows specifically. Thank you for your time and may Mary's prayers go with you always!

St. Winifred

Also St. Gwenfrewy or Winefride, she was the daughter of a Welsh nobleman, Tyfid ap Eiludd. Her suitor, Caradog, was enraged when she decided to become a nun, and decapitated her. Her head rolled downhill, and, where it stopped, a healing spring appeared. Winefride's head was subsequently rejoined to her body due to the efforts of her maternal uncle, Saint Beuno, and she was restored to life. She later became a nun and abbess at Gwytherin in Denbighshire, and Caradog, cursed by St. Beuno, melted into the ground. She died 660.