SORROWS OF MARY

The spiritual martyrdom of Mary, Blessed Virgin, and her compassion with the sufferings of her divine Son are referred to as her sorrows (or dolors). Underlying all consideration of the sorrows of Mary by Christians is the fact of her presence "by the cross of Jesus" (Jn 19.25). St. Luke, who recorded Simeon's prophecy concerning the sword that would pierce her soul (Lk 2.35), does not mention Mary's presence on Calvary. The preceding verse, however, shows that the sword refers to Mary's sorrow at the contradictions her Son would meet. At least implicitly, then, it refers to her sorrow when these came to climax in His redemptive Passion and death.

Fathers. Except for St. Ambrose, who portrayed Mary standing with courage beneath the cross, conscious of the Redemption of mankind and of the Resurrection to follow (De inst. virg. 7; Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, 16:318), the Latin Fathers who considered these New Testament texts explained them in terms of Mary's sorrow without much elaboration. It was not properly until the 11th and 12th centuries that the theme of Mary's compassion was fully developed in the West.

Following Origen (Hom. in Luc. 17), during three centuries the Eastern Fathers quite universally held the sword of Lk 2.35 to indicate Mary's supposed doubt or infidelity during the Passion. St. Romanus Melodus (d.556) in a liturgical poem in the form of a dialogue between the suffering Christ and Mary seems the first in the East to show her keeping faith during her sorrow [ed. Pitra, Anal. sacra 1 (Paris 1876) 101–07]. From the 6th to the 10th century, and thus before the West, the East considerably developed the theme of Mary's sorrow.

Devotion to the Seven Sorrows. Traceable to the early 14th century, devotion to the seven sorrows even in the 15th century varied in the specific sorrows and was paralleled by devotion to 5, 15, etc. Devotion to a fixed number of sorrows followed and was modeled on devotion to a fixed number of Mary's joys. The unvaried sorrows of today (Simeon, Egypt, loss in the Temple, carrying of the cross, Crucifixion, taking down from the cross, burial) are the result of the spread of confraternities of the seven sorrows in the Low Countries toward the end of the 15th century by a priest, John of Coudenberg. Latin distichs on these seven sorrows were part of the devotions of this confraternity [Analecta Bollandiana 12 (1893) 339–46]. In 1607 Paul V granted the servites, apostles of this devotion, exclusive power to erect these confraternities everywhere.

Liturgical Feasts. Until 1960 two feasts of the Seven Sorrows of Mary existed. The feast until then celebrated on the Friday after Palm Sunday found early precedent in a Mass decreed by a Synod of Cologne in 1423. Sixtus IV composed the liturgical Mass in 1482 and had it inserted in the Roman Missal. First conceded to individual religious orders and countries, the feast was extended to the whole Latin Church by Benedict XIII in 1727. The sequence stabat mater was added at this time. The rubrics of 1960 reduced the feast to a commemoration. The second feast originated in 16th-century devotions led by the Servites. About 1600, a Mass and procession on the third Sunday of September became popular, and in 1668 Innocent XI granted the feast to the Servites. In 1672 the Servite Prosper Bernardi composed the Mass and Office. After partial concessions, in 1814 Pius VII extended the feast to the Latin Church, to be celebrated on the third Sunday of September. In 1908 St. Pius X raised the feast to the second class, and in 1913 fixed the feast on September 15, except for the Servites, who retain the Sunday. The 1969 reforms of the liturgical calendar designate a single Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, to be celebrated as an obligatory memorial on September 15.

Bibliography: a. m. lÉpicier, Mater Dolorosa: Notes d'histoire, de liturgie et d'iconographie … (Spa 1948).

[j. c. gorman/eds.]