Pray the whole novena with us, one day at a time: the Seven Sorrows of Mary at the foot of her Son’s Cross, the traditional Prayer and Litany of Our Lady of Sorrows, the day’s Scripture and the Way of the Day — on video and in a free companion book.
One day after keeping the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Church turns to the Mother who stood beside it.
Every September 15, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows invites us to contemplate Christ’s Passion through the heart of his Mother — in fulfillment of the prophecy old Simeon spoke to her in the Temple: "And thy own soul a sword shall pierce" (Luke 2:35). This is not the memory of a passive grief, but of the fortitude and compassion of the Mother who took part, intimately, in the work of the Redemption.
The heart of this devotion is meditation on the Seven Sorrows of Mary: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple, the meeting with Jesus on the road to Calvary, the agony and death on the Cross, the body of Jesus received into her arms — the Pietà — and the burial. Seven swords piercing the Virgin’s soul, binding her to her Son’s sacrifice.
The devotion arose in the late eleventh century, through the impulse of Saint Anselm and Benedictine monks who meditated on Mary’s "compassion" — her "suffering with" Christ — and gathered strength with the Order of the Servants of Mary, founded in Florence around 1233. It was Pope Saint Pius X who fixed the date on September 15, one day after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: one day we contemplate the victorious Cross; the next, we honor the Mother who, beside it, became Queen of Martyrs.
Each day has a contemplative video with the whole novena: the opening prayer, the meditation on one of the Seven Sorrows, the Our Father and seven Hail Marys, the Word of God for the day, and the closing blessing — nothing abridged, so you can pray along from beginning to end. On the first day you choose the grace you will ask for; the companion book in PDF carries the whole novena, with a QR code for each day that leads straight to the video.
“O most holy and afflicted Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, who didst stand immovably at the foot of the Cross whilst thy Divine Son was nailed thereon, and expired before thy eyes.”
By the sword of sorrow that then pierced thy soul, obtain for us, O most holy Mother, a perfect conformity to the will of God, and a true compassion for the sufferings of Jesus. It is with this prayer, translated by us from an 1868 English devotional manual in the public domain, that each of the nine days of this novena opens. Here you find the full text, and where it comes from.
Not just a prayer to repeat: it is a nine-day journey beside the Mother who stood her ground.
The Prayer and the Litany of Our Lady of Sorrows, with the Our Father and Hail Marys in full — our own translation of a public-domain devotional manual from 1868, nothing cut.
Each day meditates one of the seven swords: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the loss in the Temple, Calvary, the Cross, the Pietà and the burial.
In its first pages the book sets out the research into the sources: why there is no "official" novena, and what is tradition, what is our own writing.
A contemplative video each day and the novena book in PDF, with a QR code — made to be printed and prayed in a group.
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