Virgo Potens

2 of 2 LITANY of OUR LADY of SORROWS Holy Mary, pray for us. Holy Mother of God, pray for us. Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us. Mother crucified, pray for us. Mother sorrowful, pray for us. Mother tearful, pray for us. Mother afflicted, pray for us. Mother forsaken, pray for us. Mother desolate, pray for us. Mother bereft of thy Son, pray for us. Mother pierced with a sword, pray for us. Mother consumed with grief, pray for us. Mother filled with anguish, pray for us. Mother crucified in heart, pray for us. Mother most sad, pray for us. Fountain of tears, pray for us. Mass of suffering, pray for us. Mirror of patience, pray for us. Rock of consistency, pray for us. Anchor of confidence, pray for us. Refuge of the forsaken, pray for us. Shield of the oppressed, pray for us. Subduer of the unbelieving, pray for us. Comfort of the wretched, pray for us. Medicine of the sick, pray for us. Strength of the weak, pray for us. Harbor of the wrecked, pray for us. Allay of tempests, pray for us. Resource of mourners, pray for us. Terror of the treacherous, pray for us. Treasure of the faithful, pray for us. Eye of the prophets, pray for us. Staff of Apostles, pray for us. Crown of martyrs, pray for us. Light of Confessors, pray for us. Pearl of Virgins, pray for us. Consolation of widows, pray for us. Joy of all Saints, pray for us. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Jesus. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Jesus. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, O Jesus. ℣. Look down upon us, ℟. Deliver us from all trouble in the power of Jesus Christ. Amen. ℣. Imprint, O Lady, thy wound upon my heart, that I may read therein sorrow and love: sorrow, to endure every sorrow for thee; love, to despise every love for thee. ℟. Amen.

LITANY of OUR LADY of SORROWS Litaniae Dominae nostrae Dolorum This Litany was composed in Latin by Pope Pius VII in 1809 during his captivity under Napoleon. For private use only. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us. God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us. God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us. God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us. Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 15th Later, when He told them that He was the Son of the blessed God, He was once more treated by the Jews as a blasphemer and condemned to death (Mark xv, 61-64). Once more —this time by Pilate’s soldiers —he was thought to be mad. They stripped him and put a scarlet cloak about him; platting a crown of thorns they put it upon His head and a reed in His right hand; and bowing the knee before Him, they mocked Him saying Hail, King of the Jews (Matt, xxvi, 28-9). But the Mother of Jesus made no move to draw near Him. She knew the bitter forms that the sorrow of separation must assume. The gospel of St. Luke contains, in the parallel passage, the same teaching (Luke xi, 17-28). St. Luke likewise gives us the reply that Jesus made when He was accused of casting out devils by Beelzebub. ‘If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his Kingdom stand? St. Luke gives us further the parable of the unclean spirit which, being cast out of a man, walked through places without water, seeking rest; and not finding takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and returns to the place whence he came out, so that the last state of that man is worse than the first. The unclean spirit is Satan who, formerly cast out of the house of Israel and finding it occupied by Christ, essays to return and bring the Jews down to a level lower than the pagans. The Jews understood the parable. Their hatred grew with their understanding. They became menacing. It was then that a woman lifted up her voice in behalf of Jesus. It has been observed that women are bolder in taking the part of those who are insulted, their heart urges them and they speak out what they feel. There is an example of this in the life of St. Benedict—Joseph Labre. One day in Rome he was attacked by eight or ten men who struck him, kicked him, flung him to the ground, spat upon him. A woman who was passing by, alone as she was, came to his rescue with an extraordinary air of authority; and as they sought to excuse themselves on the ground that he was mad and might therefore be mocked, she answered, ‘It is you who are mad, and he is a saint’. That word on behalf of the saint of poverty was the direct echo, across the space of the years, of another voice which seventeen centuries earlier had been uplifted in Galilee to defend the King of poverty against His enemies. ‘As he spoke these things’, says the gospel, ‘a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him: blessed is the womb that bore thee and the paps that gave thee suck.’ How enviable was the lot of that woman, to whom it was given to defend Jesus. Surely He, in His turn, would one day proclaim her Blessed. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 15th From that time the Virgin never again came to offer her Son consolation against insult or martyrdom. She remained afar off. She knew that such a loneliness He needed for the world’s redemption. She troubled Him no more. (continued)

ASPIRATION May the divine heart of Jesus and the immaculate heart of Mary be known, praised, blessed, loved, worshipped, and glorified always and in all places. Amen. ~ The Raccolta (1878)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 14th What that mystery is, He proceeds to show: ‘and looking round about on them who sat about Him, he saith. Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother’. Beyond the bonds of natural relationship appear the bonds of a new relationship, spiritual and outshining the first as the sun outshines the light of tapers. Natural relationship is not denied. The bonds that bind husband and wife, parents and children, master and servant, still remain. Indeed they are immeasurably ennobled (Ephesians v, 21—vi, 9). But above them are the bonds that bind the children of the Kingdom in a mysterious, more intimate kinship; and these are more precious and more profoundly interior to us, are beyond the power of time and relate us to each other by what is closest in us to God. Because this is so, the bonds of natural relationship become illicit and must be trampled under foot whenever they so act upon us as to weaken the spiritual relationship: ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke xiv, 26). The saints are in no delusion as to what our Lord means, as we shall see. Can it then have been that our Lord’s kinsfolk had come to Capharnaum to dissuade Him from preaching — that, under the impulse of too earthly an affection, they were trying to deflect Him from the mission, entrusted Him by His father in heaven, of founding the Kingdom? It may be that His brethren were thus uncomprehending. But not His Mother. She knew too well that such a Son must be about His Father’s business. She had come only to share the ignoring of sarcasm and blasphemy, and to be with Him visibly when the attack was visibly massing against Him. Why then the harshness of His word? Why should He thus refuse the gesture of her love? It was of necessity that something in itself lawful, something incomparably pure and holy and delicate should be thus eternally broken. The Virgin’s sacrifice could never be the renunciation of sin, for she had no sin; it could only be the renunciation of things holy for the sake of things holier. A physical tenderness that was holy had to be denied in order that men might know how they must treat physical tenderness that was not holy. It was of necessity that what was sinless in the Virgin should bear affliction and that the rightful desire of her heart to bring visible consolation to her Son should be cast aside in order that she might perfectly resemble her Son and that she might suffer in the likeness of Him who was to suffer and die in desolation. Thus, like to her Son and better than any who should come after her, she was to do ‘the will of God’; more fully than any who should come after her, she was to be to her Son a brother and a sister and a mother; more fully than any who should come after her, she was to enter into the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of spiritual relationships. And of that Kingdom she was to be the Queen. The word of Jesus that called upon her to sacrifice the natural manifestation of her love was harsh only to the ear. Even more powerfully than the harsh words he was later to address to the Canaanite woman, His word to His mother wrought in her soul those mighty increases of divine charity by which she could consent to renunciations ever more total. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 14th It was a moving moment, but Jesus was not moved. He had been bearing the harshness of His enemies; yet the moment He meets tenderness, the moment he becomes for His Mother an object of compassion, in that moment He seems to grow harsh Himself. It almost seemed that He scarcely deigned to notice that poor maternal love that was offered to Him, that frail refuge that she would have made for Him. ‘And answering them, He said: Who is my mother and my brethren?’ In that place these words seem hard, even cruel. What is the mystery contained within them? (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 13th But if with her own eyes she sees her son mocked, beaten, spit upon, what is there that can lighten her suffering? In such a moment she will ask one favour only, to be allowed to be near her son to protect him with her tenderness. This favour our Lady was not granted. And it was her Son who refused it. The episode is in the third chapter of St. Mark’s gospel. Jesus had chosen his apostles. He had driven out demons and had begun to preach the Kingdom of God. Crowds thronged about Him. He entered a house. The crowd gathered there likewise, so that they could not even take their food. ‘And when His friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him. For it was said: He is become mad. And the scribes who were come down from Jerusalem said: ‘He hath Beelzebub and by the prince of devils he casteth out devils.’ Thus the scribes looked upon Jesus as one possessed; but many thought He was merely mad. ‘They said,’ or, ‘it was said: He is become mad.’ Who said this? Not His relations, presumably. Certainly not His Mother. But His relations and still more His Mother were anxious. They knew that He was alone, exposed to the ill-will of the people and the hatred of the scribes. For that cause they came. Poor Mother! She knew the bite of a new sort of suffering. Up till now it had not occurred to her that the salvation of the world required that her Son, who was Wisdom Incarnate, should be treated like a madman and that He in whom the word of God dwelt ineffably should be accused of being possessed by Beelzebub. These insults, these blasphemies were a new note in her heart’s agony. She knew that her Son felt them likewise and that His heart was bleeding under them. For she knew that within the house, where the scribes had come, He sought to justify Himself before them: ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.’ He was alone against them all. She longed to enter, to take Him away with her, to show Him that her heart at least was faithful, to strain Him to her breast if He would allow her. ‘His Mother and his brethren came. And standing without sent unto Him, calling Him. And the multitude sat about Him. And they say to Him: behold thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.’ ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 13th GROWTH OF THE SORROW OF SEPARATION When death comes to take away a child there is heartbreak. But when the mother can have pride in her son, when she hears that he died in a desperate attack or for a noble cause, she finds consolation in the praises that wreathe his memory. Her sorrow is not an unmixed grieving. (continued)

Invoquez Marie et son intercession vous obtiendra le DON DE FORCE. Invoke Mary and her intercession will obtain for you the GIFT OF STRENGTH.

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 12th From now on her road lay clear in the illumination that had come to her. But it is one thing to see the road, another to tread it to the end. If her Son, for all that He was the Son of God, had to learn obedience upon the Cross by the things which He suffered (Heb. v, 8), so likewise she had day by day to come to the experimental knowledge of the grief of separation. At the end of her life, when she came to recall for the first Christians the memories she had stored in her heart as they are preserved by St. Luke in the Gospel of the Infancy, she had become divinely expert in sorrow and she could say in truth that ‘in those first happy times she had not comprehended all that was implied by the nature and mission of her Son’, and by her own sublime mission as co-redemptrix. The temporary disappearance of Jesus, and still more the words by which he explained it, were equivalent to a second sorrowful prophecy, which amplified that of Simeon and every day revealed more and more of the fullness of its meaning. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 12th Thus the third sorrow, for which the first two were a preparation, was the sorrow of the gradual breaking of the visible bonds which bound her ineffably to her Son. And this sorrow as she saw and as she willed — with a will torn and anguished like that wherewith Jesus accepted the will of His Father— was to be a sorrow that should pierce deeper into her heart all the days of her life; and of this sorrow she was to die. Thus she bore her sufferings in silence and the power of her love, pressing them close to her heart. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 12th From now on her road lay clear in the illumination that had come to her. But it is one thing to see the road, another to tread it to the end. If her Son, for all that He was the Son of God, had to learn obedience upon the Cross by the things which He suffered (Heb. v, 8), so likewise she had day by day to come to the experimental knowledge of the grief of separation. At the end of her life, when she came to recall for the first Christians the memories she had stored in her heart as they are preserved by St. Luke in the Gospel of the Infancy, she had become divinely expert in sorrow and she could say in truth that ‘in those first happy times she had not comprehended all that was implied by the nature and mission of her Son’, and by her own sublime mission as co-redemptrix. The temporary disappearance of Jesus, and still more the words by which he explained it, were equivalent to a second sorrowful prophecy, which amplified that of Simeon and every day revealed more and more of the fullness of its meaning. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 11th This darkness of agony was lightened for the moment by the joy of the reunion. For Jesus ‘went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them’. But the darkness came down again when Jesus left them to go into the desert. And out of the darkness there came to Mary a great light. She understood the special road that she must tread. It was not that her Son doubted her. He separated Himself from her thus bodily only that He might associate her in that agony of desolation in which the redemption had to be accomplished. In the garden of Gethsemane the three favoured disciples were only a stone’s cast away. But their eyes were heavy with sleep. She, who would not have slept, could not be so close. Nor could any visible being. Only, for the space of an instant, when His sweat became as drops of blood, there appeared to Him an angel from heaven (Luke xxiii, 43). Mary was beginning to see these deepest depths. She was discovering the place that abandonment must have in the work of redemption. With that, all reason for reproach vanished. Her Son, in thus making her drink His chalice in advance, loved her if that were possible even more than she could have dared to hope. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 11th For Mary then this was a mysterious trial. A bleak night came down upon her heart. Though she was without shadow of sin it must have seemed to her that she was unworthy of her mission, rejected by her Son, and in such a feeling there was measureless agony. All these years earlier she had a foretaste of desolation like that which her Son was to know in His passion. The cry of her heart, could one but have heard it, must have been like a first shadowing forth of a more terrible cry that still rends the hearts of men, for what could she have felt but ‘My Son, my Son, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 11th This darkness of agony was lightened for the moment by the joy of the reunion. For Jesus ‘went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them’. But the darkness came down again when Jesus left them to go into the desert. And out of the darkness there came to Mary a great light. She understood the special road that she must tread. It was not that her Son doubted her. He separated Himself from her thus bodily only that He might associate her in that agony of desolation in which the redemption had to be accomplished. In the garden of Gethsemane the three favoured disciples were only a stone’s cast away. But their eyes were heavy with sleep. She, who would not have slept, could not be so close. Nor could any visible being. Only, for the space of an instant, when His sweat became as drops of blood, there appeared to Him an angel from heaven (Luke xxiii, 43). Mary was beginning to see these deepest depths. She was discovering the place that abandonment must have in the work of redemption. With that, all reason for reproach vanished. Her Son, in thus making her drink His chalice in advance, loved her if that were possible even more than she could have dared to hope. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 10th Yet they knew full well that they were not in fault, that there had been no failure of their love. Then why should He treat them so, why cause them so much pain? This was the point of the reproach that Mary uttered, associating with herself by a tender movement of her charity the husband who suffered with her in silence: ‘Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.’ His answer seems harsh, so harsh that it does not at first yield up all the light that it contains: ‘And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my father’s business? And they understood not the word that He spoke unto them.’ It was the beginning of the third sorrow. ‘They understood not the word that He spoke unto them.’ Yet they knew perfectly well that He must be with His Father, about His Father’s business. The Angel had announced to Mary that His name should be called Jesus, which is Saviour, that He would reign in the house of Jacob forever (Luke i, 31 and 33). Simeon had said further that in spite of the contradictions of which He should be the sign, He would be the glory of God’s people Israel and a light to the revelation of the Gentiles (Luke ii, 32). She had not forgotten any one of these words. Thus she knew the supernatural mission of her Child. She knew that He was more God’s Son than hers, that He belonged to God more than to her. But so far she had no more than an obscure presentiment of the mysterious demands of that grace which had made of her the Mother of God the Saviour. Naturally He must be with His father, but did that mean that He must detach her from Himself? Why must He occupy Himself without her with that business which was to her as it was to Him dearer than life? Did He doubt her love or her fidelity or even her courage — she who would have followed him anywhere! ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 10th Third Sorrow. — Does any ordinary mother ever lose her child? Never. How then came it that this Mother lost this Child as we read towards the end of the second chapter of St. Luke’s gospel? It can only have been that He himself brought it about of set purpose. By His own deliberate act He eluded the vigilance of His parents. At a given moment He veiled their eyes and departed from them. ‘When they returned, the Child Jesus remained in Jerusalem. And His parents knew it not. And thinking that He was in the company, they came a day’s journey.’ Not till the evening did the veil fall from their eyes. Then they ‘sought Him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance. And not finding Him, they returned into Jerusalem seeking Him’. It was bitter humiliation, bitterer anguish. (continued)

2 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 9th From the land of Egypt God had once recalled His beloved Son, the people of Israel; to the land of Egypt these two were journeying back bearing a little Child, more precious in Himself than all the children of adoption, since He was the Only-Begotten of the Father, the Word made Flesh. But a day was to come when the Word of Osee (xi, i), ‘I called my son out of Egypt’, would receive a new meaning. Their poverty would continue, but their exile ended. Joseph was able to take the Child and His mother and return into the land of Israel. In the long journeyings between the place of her exile and her own land, one joy at least the Virgin never lost. She had her Child with her. She continued to wrap Him in swaddling clothes as in the stable. She watched over Him unceasingly. He was never away from her. ~ Charles Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows. Tr. F.J. Sheed. (1939)

1 of 2 Month of the Seven Dolors of Mary / The Sorrowful Mother ~ September 9th So much mystery tested not only their courage, but their faith: not that their faith wavered under the trial: rather was it strengthened and purified. This road they were on had seen many a marvel wrought by God long ago; today they trod the road in want and weakness. (continued)