Thursday 15 September 2022

mater dolorosa (10. 135)

Formerly a movable feast like its other veneration a week before Good Friday until Pope Pius X fixed the date in 1913—possibly to suppress the idolatrous practise of the adoration of a miraculous portrait of Saint Dominic, later lost in an earthquake—Our Lady of Sorrows marks the seven hardships in the Life of Mary, mother of Jesus, which are: the Prophecy of Simeon, the Flight into Egypt, Losing Jesus in the Temple, her encounter with Jesus on Via Dolorosa, the Crucifixion, the Disposition and Burial. These devotions are counter-punctual to the Seven Joys: the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, the visit of the Magi, Finding Jesus in the Temple, the Resurrection and her Coronation as the Queen of Heaven.