FEAST: OUR LADY OF SORROWS
September 15th, 2010
"Be glad to share in the sufferings of Christ! When he comes in glory, you will be filled with joy"
1 Peter 4 :13
The deepest sorrow in a family is the loss of a son or daughter. Recently, a TV programme told the story of a father who had lost his ten year old son in a cycling accident. When the child died, his organs were transplanted to give five other people the chance of life. Not only were these lives saved through the generosity of the boy’s parents, but also through the swift actions of the ambulance crew who attended the accident, which meant the organs were saved in a short time and thus gave the medical team the best assurance that these lives could be saved. Since then, the father of the boy, through love for his son, has worked tirelessly to raise money for other life-saving operations and is presently preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Such is human love.
How much therefore, will Mary, the Mother of Jesus, long to save us on account of the death of her Son. She surely is our mother too and will intercede for us that her Son, God made man, will not have died in vain, but will bring us all into new life.
Prayer
Lord, I place myself into the care of Mary, your Mother. May she pray for us all that we may rejoice with her when this life is over and we meet her Son in eternity. Amen.
The prayer for each day has been prepared by various members of the Holy Family Association. All who visit our website are remembered in prayer. If you would like us to pray for a particular need, simply complete and submit the form on the right hand side of this page. You may wish to leave a comment in the space below.
Just a Thought
How the Holy Family prayer: A Reflection by Pope Benedict XVI
“I would like to invite you to reflect on the place of prayer in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The home of Nazareth, in fact, is a school of prayer where we learn to listen, to ponder and to penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, drawing our example from Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
Pope Paul VI during his visit to Nazareth said “we come to understand the need for a spiritual discipline, if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ.” And he added: “First, it teaches us silence. Oh! That there would be reborn in us the esteem for silence, that wonderful and indispensable atmosphere of the spirit: while we are deafened by so many noises, sounds and clamorous voices in the frantic and tumultuous times of modern life. Oh! Silence of Nazareth, teach us to be resolute in good thoughts, intent upon the interior life, ready to listen well to the secret inspirations of God and the exhortations of the true masters.”
We can glean several insights on the Holy Family’s prayer and relationship with God from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ childhood. We may begin with the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. St. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph, “when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, brought the child up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”(2:22). Like every observant Jewish family, Jesus’ parents go up to the temple to consecrate the firstborn son to God and to offer sacrifice. Moved by fidelity to the law’s prescriptions, they set off from Bethlehem and go up to Jerusalem with Jesus, who is now forty days old. Instead of a one-year-old lamb, they present the offering of simple families; that is two young pigeons. The Holy Family’s pilgrimage is one of faith, of the offering of gifts, a symbol of prayer, and of encounter with the Lord, whom Mary and Joseph already see in the son Jesus.”
