Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Our Lady of Sorrows - Memorial
John 19:25-27
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Hebrews 5:7-9
He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation,
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 31:1-2,2-3,4-5,14-15,19
In you, the Lord, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness. Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me. For you are my rock and my fortress, therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me. Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my stronghold. Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, the Lord, God of truth. But I trust in you, the Lord. I said, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me. Oh how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have worked for those who take refuge in you, before the sons of men!
Gospel
John 19:25-27
But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Therefore when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.
Lectio
There is a striking silence at the foot of the cross. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us of Christ's "strong crying and tears," of prayers wrung out of him in the days of his flesh — and here, in John's Gospel, we see the culmination of that suffering. Yet the woman standing beneath him does not cry out. Mary simply stands. She has learned, over a lifetime, what her Son is learning through his Passion: that obedience is something you learn by the things you suffer, not around them. There is no shortcut through grief to holiness. Even the sinless Mother had to stand and watch and let it happen.
And in the middle of his agony, Jesus is still giving. "Behold, your son. Behold, your mother." From the cross, he is building a family, entrusting people to one another, making sure his mother will be held. This is what love does even when it is being crushed — it keeps thinking of the other. The psalmist's words hang over the whole scene: "Into your hand I commend my spirit. My times are in your hand." Mary is living those words while her Son prepares to speak them aloud. She is not delivered *from* the sorrow; she is held *within* it.
To honor Our Lady of Sorrows is to be told, gently, that our sufferings are not proof that God has abandoned us. Sometimes the deepest fidelity looks like simply staying — remaining at the foot of something we cannot fix or change, refusing to walk away.
Where in your life right now are you being asked to stand beside someone's suffering that you cannot fix — and are you tempted to leave?
When Jesus said "Behold, your mother," he gave the beloved disciple into someone's care; who is the person God may be entrusting to you right now, and what would it cost you to take them "into your own home"?
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora