Our Lady of Sorrows: Spend 5 with Jesus for Friday, September 15, 2023

From above or from below? Maybe today, spend a little bit of time just thinking about the love and mercy of God. And ask God to change your lives, to change your hearts, to change your soul, so that you can have a loving and powerful relationship with Him.

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Table of Contents

Our Lady of Sorrows

Transcript (A New Feature!)

Each time we record something, we will provide a transcript of the recording. Enjoy!

Hello and welcome to Spend Five with Jesus for Friday, September 15, 2023. I am the friar and I am delighted to have you with us today.

Today we celebrate our Lady of Sorrows. It can be easy to think that Mary didn’t suffer much. The pictures we have of Mary sometimes only reinforce this. She doesn’t look in some pictures of Mary or statues of Mary as one who is even capable of suffering.

But truth be told, when we look at her life, there are many instances where first we know overtly that Mary suffered. And secondly, we can surmise in others that there was probably some difficulty as she sought to understand what her relationship with her son was about. So when did her suffering begin?

Well, right from the very beginning, would say of when we encounter her. The Angel Gabriel comes to her and announces that she is going to be the Mother of God, but she’s not going to have intercourse. That’s a pretty difficult thing to wrap your head around, to understand.

Moreover, she has to think about now how is she going to explain this to her husband to be Joseph? We know that Joseph had some difficulty with it because he was going divorce her quietly. She goes to help her kinswoman Elizabeth, a journey as any journey in that time that was probably not easy. And we see in the very moments of the birth of Jesus, the difficulty of traveling to Bethlehem while she was pregnant, the need to escape to Egypt to avoid being killed by Herod.

Those moments in life where she had unbelievable sorrow, like when she was looking for Jesus when he was lost in the temple. There are so many instances where we can see this, but probably none more profound than the Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross.

The cross is not a popular concept today, I think. We tend to forget the cross. This is true even among those of us who are priests or religious or sisters or profess brothers or anybody of faith.

When we are challenged to do something that is hard or difficult, that we don’t want to do, how easy is it to say, “No, I’m not going to do it.” But Mary stayed at the foot of the cross. Mary embraced the cross in the midst of her sorrow and suffering.

She’s a model for us in that regard, for we too need to stay at the foot of the cross. We need to remember that in the midst of all of these difficulties, we are never alone. Jesus is always with us, and Mary has a special compassion for us because of her suffering.

Have you ever noticed that some people find it difficult to understand hardship, and when you examine their life, it appears that they’ve had no suffering? There’s been no cross.

Today, as we express deep gratitude for the presence of the Blessed Mother in our life, let us ask the Blessed Mother to turn our sacrifices, our sufferings, into the way of salvation that she did. Let us ask the Lord today to help us to understand that suffering brings us closer to Jesus just as the Blessed Mother experienced a closeness to God. And let us ask that her compassion be felt when she answers our prayers to God.

On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.