Our Lady's Seventh Sorrow

Jesus is Placed in the Tomb

"To what can I liken or compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What example can I show you for your comfort, O Virgin daughter of Sion? For great as the sea is your downfall."

(From the Divine Office of the Feast of the Seven Sorrows).

The Sabbath rest quickly approaches, they must take Our Lord's body from the arms of His Most Holy Mother and place it in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. A pious tradition is held that Mary herself arranges the folds of the winding sheet with her own hands. Joseph closes the tomb with a rock and the mourners leave.

"Depart from me, I will weep bitterly; labor not to comfort me. There is in Him no stately bearing to make us look at Him, nor appearance that would attract us to Him. From the sole of the foot to the head, there is no sound spot in Him."

How great must have been Mary's sorrow! Yet this heavy sorrow could not overcome her faith in Jesus, her God and her Son, nor her hope in His promise of return. Sweet Mother, entomb Jesus in the sepulchre of my heart. Seal it with thy love, that I may not betray Him, but with Him and through Him may attain live everlasting.

"God of mercy, let us run

Where yon fount of sorrow flows;

Pondering sweetly, one by one

Jesus 's wounds and Mary's woes.

Ah, those tears Our Lady shed,

Enough to drown a world of sin;

Tears that Jesus 's sorrows fed..."

(Hymn from Lauds of the Feast of the Sorrows of Mary-excerpt)

Prayer

I grieve for thee, O Mary most sorrowful,

for the pangs that wrenched thy most loving heart

at the burial of Jesus.

Dear Mother, by thy heart sunk in the

bitterness of desolation, obtain for me

the virtue of diligence and the

gift of wisdom.

(Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother, TAN Books)

Hail Mary...