Clad in black clothing and mantillas, 50 women of St. Mary Parish, Barnegat, carried a lit candle in procession from the parish center in Manahawkin to the darkened church to honor Our Lady of Sorrows.
Msgr. Kenard , pastor of St. Mary, welcomed the assembly, then opened the quiet, solemn service with a prayer May 20.
The St. Mary parishioners, who worship at St. Mary Church, Barnegat, and St. Mary of the Pines Church, Manahawkin, prayed the Seven Sorrows Rosary. Unlike the traditional Rosary with five decades, this chaplet has seven divisions, each with seven beads, that meditate upon Mary’s seven sorrows found in the Gospels. Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows dates back at least to the 12th century.
A table stand and an icon of Our Lady of Sorrows in the sanctuary were the illuminated focal points in the church.
Seven women, each escorted to the ambo by a member of the Knights of Columbus, proclaimed the Scripture verses associated with each of the Seven Sorrows, then led a recitation and meditation. Each recitation was illuminated by a different colored light, with deep red washing over the icon at the Death of Jesus, the fifth sorrow.
As each sorrow ended, the Knight and reader proceeded to the table stand, into which the Knight set his sword. The reader hung her Rosary over the upright hilt of the sword.
This devotion is modeled after one celebrated during Holy Week in the Sicilian town of Taormina, which John Pescatore, a K of C member, found as he virtually explored Easter preparations in other cultures.
“I like to see how other Catholics celebrate Holy Week,” said Pescatore. “Every Holy Week, the townswomen, dressed in black clothing and mantillas, processed to other towns, gathering women from neighboring communities, as six women carried a statue of the Blessed Mother. They believed only a woman could understand the pain and suffering Mary had undergone as she witnessed the Passion and Death of her Son.
“I venerated Mary, but I never recognized her as a woman with human emotions,” he added.
The Seven Sorrows Rosary originated in the 14th century, when Our Lady of Sorrows appeared and presented it to St. Bridget of Sweden. It was reintroduced after the Marian apparitions in the 1980s in Kibeho, Rwanda. (Editor’s note: Those apparitions were approved in 2001.)
Parishioner Felicia Massari said the service was “tailored it to the spiritual style of an American parish.”
Msgr. Tuzeneu mused on the evening and its lesson. “In praying these mysteries, we feel the helplessness of Mary. We see she might have been helpless, but she wasn’t hopeless.”
The sanctuary in St. Mary of the Pines Church is shown with the table stand and icon of Our Lady of Sorrows that were used for the Our Lady of Sorrows observance in May. Courtesy photo