Mary, our Sorrowful Mother, shows us suffering rooted in love

Praying with Mary’s Seven Sorrows can help us enter into prayer with her during the month of September

Submitted on September 15, 2026

When Karen Palazzola joined the Secular Servites in 2004, she was just looking for a way to grow closer to the Blessed Mother.

She learned about devotion to Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows, a title that honors the suffering she endured in union with her son, Jesus.

“I just like to look at her picture and know that she said yes to things that she didn’t know about, and I can say yes to the future, not knowing what the future is, and be comfortable with it because Jesus is going to walk with me, too,” said Palazzola, now the prioress of the Secular Servites’ Seven Holy Founders local community.

The Order of the Servants of Mary, or Servites, was founded in the early 13th century by seven Italian cloth merchants known as the “Seven Holy Founders.” The order helped popularize devotion to Mary under her title of Our Lady of Sorrows. Other saints, including St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Alphonsus Ligouri, held deep devotion to the Sorrowful Mother.

In “The Glories of Mary,” St. Alphonsus Ligouri wrote: “This great torment, then, which Mary endured for us — a torment which was more than a thousand deaths deserves both our compassion and our gratitude. If we can make no other return for so much love, at least let us give a few moments this day to consider the greatness of the sufferings by which Mary became the Queen of martyrs; for the sufferings of her great martyrdom exceeded those of all the martyrs; being, in the first place, the longest in point of duration; and, in the second place, the greatest in point of intensity.”

The Church dedicates September to Our Lady of Sorrows, whose memorial is celebrated Sept. 15, the day after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Catholics remember Mary’s suffering alongside her son, Jesus, as she mothered Him through childhood and stood by Him as He endured His passion and death for our sins.

Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows often includes praying with the Seven Sorrows of Mary, also known as the Seven Dolors. The sorrows start with Simeon’s prophecy during the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple that a sword would pierce Mary’s heart and follow the Blessed Mother’s journey through Jesus’ death and burial.

There are several ways to pray with the sorrows of Mary, including a Seven Sorrows Rosary used by the Servites and the Via Matris (Way of the Mother) that offers reflections in a similar style to the Stations of the Cross.

Little Flower Parish in Richmond Heights will host a Via Matris prayer service on Sept. 15, offering parishioners and visitors the chance to become familiar with the devotion as they marked the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The parish hosted the Via Matris devotion for the first time on Holy Saturday this year when a first Saturday prayer group was looking for an alternate devotion to the group’s typical Mass, organizer and parishioner Bopsy Miller said.

“Our Stations (of the Cross) are on the outer perimeter of the church, so we posted pictures of each of the Seven Sorrows on the other wall,” she said. “It was so nice to be walking between Jesus and Mary in these events that are our redemption.”

Since relatively little is said in the Gospels about Mary’s thoughts and feelings, the Via Matris reflections helped Miller pray more deeply with the events from Mary’s perspective, she said.

“It seems that she, of course, was suffering the immediate things that we see, but we know that even the suffering of Jesus physically was only a small part of the suffering He endured,” she said. “She united her sufferings with Christ and therefore was able to care about other souls.”

Drawing close to Mary as our Sorrowful Mother can help us see the grace that can come through our own suffering, Miller said. Miller recalled feeling especially close to Mary during the death of her mother, or any time her own children were in pain.

Our Lady of Sorrows has taught her “the depth of sorrow and that it has its root in love,” she said.

“What makes sorrow so bad is the depth of your love,” she said. “(Mary’s) love was perfect, and to witness what she did with her Son, to experience everything, the rejection, knowing He was God incarnate, to take it in and not be vengeful — she transferred it to mercy. The whole thing helps me understand a little better the mystery of suffering.”

Miller plans to make the Via Matris at Little Flower Parish an annual event to help spread awareness of the devotion and grow closer to the Sorrowful Mother.

“Mary stood with Jesus in the suffering, and I think through her prayers, we can do the same,” she said.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary

1. The Prophecy of Simeon

Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34-35)

2. The Flight into Egypt

The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophets might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:13-15)

3. The Loss of Jesus for Three Days

After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” (Luke 2:43-48)

4. Mary Meets Jesus on His Way to Calvary

A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him. Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ (Luke 23:27-29)

5. Mary Stands at the Foot of the Cross

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)

6. Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

After this, Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. And Pilate permitted it. (John 19:31-34, 38)

7. The Burial of Jesus

They took the body of Jesus and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom. Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried. So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day; for the tomb was close by.” (John 19:40-42)