Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we gather to reflect on the words of the Lord in the Scriptures we just heard, we remember that this day we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, remembering the great sorrow that Mary, the Mother of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, had experienced and suffered from, having witnessed everything that her Son had to suffer during His ministry, and then having to see her own Son being persecuted and tortured, betrayed by His own disciple, abandoned by others and condemned to die a most painful and humiliating death on the Cross for sins and faults that He Himself had not committed, and framed for crimes that He was not responsible for.

As with any mothers, seeing her own Son to suffer in such a manner must have been so difficult for Mary. Yet, she persevered through it all, and as sorrowful and painful it must have been for her, she remained true to her commitment to the mission entrusted to her, as the Mother of God, the Mother of the Saviour, to Whom she has dedicated much of her life to, in caring for Him since before He was even born into this world, and right up through most of His life, and unto the very foot of the Cross, where she witnessed her Son dying both as the Paschal Lamb of Sacrifice and the High Priest of all mankind, offering Himself for the salvation of all the whole world.

Mary had received premonition and warning for all these from Simeon the old prophet and servant of God who was awaiting the Messiah or Saviour of the world at the Temple of Jerusalem just as we heard in our Gospel passage today. Simeon told her how Mary would have to see her Son as a Sign for all the nations and how she would have to witness and experience great moments of pain, suffering and anguish, which he described as likened to a sword piercing her very own heart, the most loving and Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Mother of God. All those eventually came true and we knew the image of the grieving Mary, who grieved over the death of her Son.

That is why Mary has always been so attentive to us throughout history, as she continued to reach out to us, appearing in many occasions to different people, encouraging the people of God to be faithful to Him and to return to Him with regret and the desire to be forgiven from their many sins. That is because just as she has experienced losing her Son to suffering and death, and knowing that He had suffered and died for all of our sake, for our redemption and salvation, surely she did not want the sacrifice made by her Son to be wasted by us, as many of us still ignore Him and refuse to follow Him and His truth, and fail to recognise His love.

Not only that, but Mary herself has also been entrusted to each one of us as our own loving mother, as the Lord Himself as we heard in our Gospel passage today, entrusted Mary to St. John the Apostle, His beloved disciple to be his own mother, and he as the son entrusted to Mary. This is a symbolic act by which the Church and the Lord has extended the loving hands of Mary, her love and compassion, her motherly care and her attention to us, her beloved children, to each one of us as her own adopted and equally beloved precious children. We are all so fortunate that our mother even in her sorrow continues to show us her love, through which she has always hoped that we may find the salvation in her Son.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, what has always brought sorrow to our loving Mother’s heart is our constant disobedience and refusal to listen to the words that her Son has always spoken to us. All of us have received His truth and love, His instructions, will, Law and commandments, His teachings and ways through the Church and the Scriptures, but we often still preferred to follow our own paths in life, and those paths more often than not led us down the path of sin and ruin. Many of us have fallen on the wayside in our path towards God and His salvation, tempted and swayed by the many efforts of the devil and his allies in their works to prevent us from being reunited and reconciled with God.

That is why today, as we commemorate this Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, let us all reflect first of all on everything that the Lord, our God and Saviour had done for our sake, in His ever enduring and wonderful love, in reaching out to us with love and in sacrificing Himself for our sake so that through Him we may have life and not perish. Then we also should remember the love that His mother Mary has shown us all, and how we have been entrusted to her as her own adopted children. She has always prayed and interceded for our sake, and wanted the best for us, ever reminding us to turn towards her Son and to be righteous and good at all times.

Let us all therefore ask our beloved Mother Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, to continue to love us patiently and to not be sorrowful anymore, by our commitment and desire to repent from our sins and by our efforts to live our lives with faith from now on, making good use of all the opportunities given to us, in each and every moments to be exemplary in life and to inspire one another to follow the Lord and to be ever faithful always. May God be with us always and may His blessed Mother, Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, our Mother, pray for us always. Amen.