Our Lady of Sorrows: Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC 2017

Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, is the Patroness of the Congregation of Holy Cross. As we prepare for the memorial on September 15, I will offer a new image and a short reflection based on each of the Seven Sorrows of Mary.

Matthew 2:13-15. When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.”

Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

The Second Sword

 An elderly father whispered to me in the parish lobby,

He trusted my heart to bear the mystery of his lost son.

His only boy graduated from Notre Dame year’s back,

Today surviving somewhere in an Indiana woods.

The father’s lost child suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,

Torments his father’s dreams disoriented among regret and disease.

Carl whisper’s to me his prayer to Our Lady of Sorrows,

Hoping that his child will remember his past parental love.

From a small church lobby in a strange city a few years ago,

I carry the father’s dreams aching for Mary to accompany the searching family.