Dear Saints,

In our media-saturated world, it can be very difficult to know who to trust. But there is one woman whose testimony remains transcendent and rock solid: our Blessed Mother. We have every reason to believe she is the truth-teller and role model par excellence.

The Church dedicates September in a particular way to Our Lady of Sorrows, honoring the profound suffering Mary endured in union with her son. This devotion, whose roots reach back to the twelfth century, invites us to contemplate the seven sorrows that pierced Mary’s heart: Simeon’s prophecy, the flight into Egypt, the loss of Jesus in the Temple, Mary’s meeting with Jesus on the way to Calvary, his Crucifixion, his being taken down from the Cross, and his burial. Mary did not merely witness Jesus’s life from a distance; she entered into it with the steadfast love of a mother.

September offers an especially fitting opportunity to ask whether we, too, can endure through suffering, confusion, and uncertainty. By her own life, Mary tells us we can. And if there is one woman we should believe, it’s the one whose faithful “yes” to God carried her from Nazareth to Calvary and into the heart of our salvation.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ