Our Lady of Sorrows is not a very welcoming title.

Indeed, I suspect that for many, a title like “Our Lady of Sorrows” is a complete turn-off.

It doesn’t sit easily with the modern person.

But the church’s celebration of Our Lady of Sorrows is not an attempt to drag us all down, to suck the life out of us, rather, it is an acknowledgement that without those sorrows there’d be no salvation for us, nothing other than the grave.

Her sorrows are our salvation!

Often, increasingly, I see and hear huge statements such as “happy heavenly birthday” – statements that are true, but rarely accompanied by an awareness of the cost to Jesus and Mary. If our loved ones who’ve passed on are to enjoy a happy heavenly birthday it is only possible because of the sorrows that Mary experienced.

So, it is right and fitting that we honour her sorrows because those sorrows are our heavenly birthdays!