Our Lady of Sorrows by Emil Jacques, Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Portland OR
This homily was given at a Votive Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows at Saint Mary’s, Alexandria VA.
It is fitting that in the month of September, dedicated as it is to Our Lady of Sorrows, and following the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we offer this Votive Mass of Our Lady of Sorrows, and so honour She who is at once the Mother of Christ and our mother also. That we do so in a church dedicated to Our Lady, and at an altar placed so precisely at the foot of a great and beautiful crucifix, is all the more poignant. Truly we have come to Calvary; to participate in the one, full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. As the Council of Trent taught, and as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms: “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: ‘The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different’” (§ 1367).
