Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day the Church celebrates the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, which is always celebrated on the day following the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Both feasts are indeed related to each other as we cannot separate the sufferings and sorrows of Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows when she witnessed the cruel and most painful sufferings of her Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. Mary’s great sorrow, seeing all that her Son had to undergo for the sake of the salvation of the world indeed reminded us of the great love and devotion which she has always had in following and committing herself to all that God had planned and revealed to her, in everything that He has entrusted to her in the story of our salvation.

In our first reading passage today, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author of this Epistle spoke of the great obedience which Christ our Lord and Saviour had shown in following the commands and the will of His heavenly Father, in taking up His Cross and bearing upon Himself the whole combined burdens of the sins of the whole world, of all mankind, past, present and future, of all time. Such a seemingly infinitely heavy and impossible burden it may be, but the Lord bore it patiently out of His even greater love for each and every one of us. And this role was what He had been sent into this world for, the Divine Word and Son of God Incarnate Who had been made Son of Man through His mother Mary, who is truly His mother.

And when Christ suffered on the Cross, He really did suffer genuinely, as although He is God, the Divine Word of God, but He is also fully Man at the same time, and He truly did suffer in the flesh, all the pain and wounds that He endured out of love for all of us, and seeing this kind of suffering is something that no one, and especially no mother would have wanted to witness to happen to her own child. This had been presaged and revealed to Mary herself many years previously as we heard in one of our two possible Gospel passages for today, from the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist. At the time when Mary and St. Joseph presented the Child Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, the old man of God named Simeon had been promised by the Lord that he would not pass away before beholding in person the Saviour that God had promised all of His people.

It was at that very occasion that Simeon spoke to Mary regarding what she would have to face amidst the upcoming challenges and pains that she would have to suffer as part of the mission which God had entrusted to her. She would face the worst of heartbreaks and sorrow when seeing her own Son being persecuted, suffering and dying before her. And as we heard, Mary listened to the words of Simeon and kept those words in her heart, trusting in the Lord in everything that He had planned, and not even once questioning what the Lord had intended to do with her. As what she had responded to the Archangel Gabriel at the time of the Annunciation, she is truly the handmaid of the Lord, and she devoted herself wholly to Him, in everything that He had entrusted to her.

And in the other Gospel passage from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus was dying on the Cross, and how He entrusted His own Mother Mary to the care of His beloved disciple, St. John himself, and then conversely, also entrusted St. John to the care of His Mother. Through this symbolic act, what in fact happened was the entrustment of all of us mankind, represented by St. John, to the Mother of Our Lord herself, to be our loving and caring Mother, Our Lady and Mother of Sorrows, whose heart had been greatly troubled by the sufferings of her own Son that she had witnessed, as she followed Him throughout the whole Way of the Cross. That is why Mary has always been so passionate and committed to help us all, her own adopted children, to find our way to the salvation in her Son.

Having seen for herself everything that the old man of God, Simeon, had predicted to her, indeed Mary’s heart must have been pained as if she was pierced by many swords.
And yet, she remained firm in her resolve to follow through what had been entrusted to her, and she committed herself ever more to the mission, which therefore should be great inspiration for all of us to follow in our own lives as Christians. Mary is indeed the perfect example of faith, and how each and every one of us should live our own lives so that we may truly align ourselves to the Lord’s will, to everything that He has shown and taught us to do. And while we may encounter a lot of hardships, disappointments and challenges in life, we should remain firm in faith as what Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows has shown us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, from the sufferings and pains that she had encountered, Mary our loving Mother has constantly shown us her love even to this day, as proven by her many efforts and works, in appearing to us at the times of great need. Mary’s proven apparitions in Guadalupe, Lourdes and Fatima, among others, all usually happened during times of great conflicts and turmoils, all of which would cause the downfall of many people through violence and wickedness, and as such, Mary showed herself to remind all of us her children that we should not disobey the Lord but instead remembering that we should turn towards Him and asking Him for His mercy and forgiveness, or else we will suffer the fate of those who have rejected God’s generous offer of mercy, just as how her Son had suffered on the Cross for our sins.

May all of us continue to walk in the path that Our Lord has shown us, and may we continue to put our hope and faith in Him despite the many challenges and hardships that we may have to endure and persevere through in life. May Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, our loving Mother continue to intercede for us all in our journey of faith and life, and may through her patient prayers, intercessions and guidance, many more of us come to seek the Lord and find our true joy and redemption in Him. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.