09/01/2026
The month of September is dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Despite being the perfect mother, Mary was not exempt from that dynamic of suffering particular to mother and child. Rather, Mary underwent the greatest suffering a mother could possibly undergo when she beheld the death of her Son, the God-man, upon the Cross. It is here that this group of Catholic mothers were especially clear: “To be a mother is to suffer.”
To those mothers who grieve at the sight of their suffering child, the book of Mary presents them with nothing more and nothing less than the Cross.
It was there (at the Cross) that Mary stood alongside her Son, in spite of the ignominy that was his. It was there that Mary kept watch and did not abandon her child, while others turned and fled.
It was there that Mary prayed and did not lose hope for her little boy; and this, after she heard him breathe his last. Suffice it to say, Mary suffered as a mother. She knows the pain; she knows what it feels like to watch a child suffer.
All mothers have an advocate in Our Lady of Sorrows. They too can learn from her perfect example, her unyielding fidelity to her Son.
—Fr. Maximilian Maria Jaskowak, O.P.
