Our Lady of Sorrows

Pieta in Carey, Ohio

Michelangelo’s Pieta may be the single most revered statue on earth. Millions have seen it in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Washington DC; billions are familiar with it. And that statue is only one of many similar sculptures and painting with the same name, honoring Mary’s grief in the aftermath of Jesus’ death. It appears also in occasional allusions in the cinema, such as last spring’s Avatar, when Neytiri holds the dying Jake Sully in her lap.  

This feast follows immediately upon yesterday’s Exaltation of the Cross, but has a very different feeling. If we were lifting high the cross yesterday, today we come back to earth and recall the sadness that pursues human life at every step. While the tragedy of murder is hard enough to bear, its horror is accentuated when we consider the mother, father, family and friends of the victim. The Pieta represents all of that grief.

Traditionally the title Our Lady of Sorrows recalls the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady:

1. The Prophecy of Simeon over the Infant Jesus. (Gospel of Luke 2:34)
2. The Flight into Egypt of the Holy Family. (Gospel of Matthew 2:13)
3. The Loss of the Child Jesus for Three Days. (Luke 2:43)
4. The Meeting of Jesus and Mary along the Way of the Cross. (Luke 23:26)
5. The Crucifixion, where Mary stands at the foot of the cross. (Gospel of John 19:25)
6. The Descent from the Cross, where Mary receives the dead body of Jesus in her arms. (Matthew 27:57)
7. The Burial of Jesus. (John 19:40)

These meditations, similar to the Stations of the Cross and the Mysteries of the Rosary, teach us to experience our own grief. In some ways we have become adept at putting off sadness. We live far longer than our ancestors. Children born today can expect to live into their eighties and nineties. Many of them will know their four grandparents and eight great grandparents. Some will surpass their thirtieth birthday before they attend the funeral of a close family member.

And, consequently, when grief comes it often feels like a shock, like something that should not be. Some people experience death for the first time as several loved ones die in a relatively short span of time. All of the sudden we experience the deaths of a grandparent, parent, uncle or aunt, child and spouse in a space of only months. A stable “constellation” of people who were always there suddenly disintegrates.

To some this unexpected grief feels like madness. Unfamiliar with such loss  and sadness they are frightened and anxious. Who will go next? Am I going insane? 
Meanwhile the world goes on in its own indifference. The entertainment media continue to harass us with beautiful people who have never known sorrow; actors on television pretend to die by gunshot and explosion and the stories never pause to honor the dead. Merchants push their wares with the assurance that you can be happy if only you'll buy their products. 
Mourners may be allowed to attend funerals but they’re expected to show up at work in high spirits, ready to forget their private losses and attend to business.

Our Lady of Sorrows accompanies us on the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrow. Sorrow is a true sign, a living proof of the love we have for one another. Without grief we would not be human. Soldiers in Vietnam, shuddering under the impact of death, would often say to one another, “It don’t matter!” They had little choice but to put off their grief until it would catch up with them in later years. In the aftermath of war, PTSD falls upon the warriors, recalling them to life in all its rich, terrifying depth.

Our Lady of Sorrows speaks to us of God’s grief. She invites us to know and embrace the ineffably beautiful dimensions of our very existence.