Mission Statement
We, the members of Holy Rosary Parish family, are the living sign of Christ’s Presence, reconciling life, light, hopefulness, and healing within our community. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we seek to realize the full potential of our creative energies to be about the work of God in our commitment to the Lord, each other, the Church and our world.
We are a community sharing responsibility and celebration. We seek to reflect the love of Jesus in such a way that we burn with desire to be at one with Him. We pray that we are open to hear an understand the good news, while we reach out to those who have not heard it.
We come together as one, sharing the Word, the Eucharist, and the Spirit which is our Gift from God.
Pastor
Rev. Jose Amante Abalon
September: The Month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary
The Church dedicates the month of September to Our Lady of Sorrows. This devotion recalls the Blessed Virgin Mary’s spiritual martyrdom in virtue of her perfect union with the Passion of Christ. This was her role in salvation history, and what merited her place as the spiritual Mother of all Christians. This is symbolized by a single sword, or seven swords, piercing Mary’s suffering heart, as foretold in Simeon’s prophecy. Traditionally the Church meditates on the “Seven Sorrows” of our Blessed Mother: the prophecy of Simeon; the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt; the loss of the Child Jesus for three days; the meeting of Mary and Jesus as he carried his cross; Jesus’ crucifixion and death; Jesus’ sacred body taken down from the cross; and Jesus’ burial.
As written by Fr. Frederick Faber in The Foot of the Cross, “God vouchsafed to select the very things about Him which are most incommunicable, and in a most mysteriously real way communicate them to [Mary]. See how He had already mixed her up with the eternal designs of creation, making her almost a partial cause and partial model of it.
Our Lady’s co-operation in the redemption of the world gives us a fresh view of her magnificence. Neither the Immaculate Conception nor the Assumption will give us a higher idea of Mary’s exaltation than the title of co-redemptress. Her sorrows were not necessary for the redemption of the world, but in the counsels of God they were inseparable from it. They belong to the integrity of the divine plan. Are not Mary’s mysteries Jesus’ mysteries, and His mysteries hers?
The truth appears to be that all the mysteries of Jesus and Mary were in God’s design as one mystery. Jesus Himself was Mary’s sorrow, seven times repeated, aggravated sevenfold. During the hours of the Passion, the offering of Jesus and the offering of Mary were tied in one. They kept pace together; they were made of the same materials; they were perfumed with kindred fragrance; they were lighted with the same fire; they were offered with kindred dispositions. The two things were one simultaneous oblation, interwoven each moment through the thickly crowded mysteries of that dread time, unto the eternal Father, out of two sinless hearts, that were the hearts of Son and Mother, for the sins of a guilty world which fell on them contrary to their merits, but according to their own free will.”
History of the Devotion
Devotion to the sorrows of the Virgin Mary dates from the twelfth century, when it made its appearance in monastic circles under the influence of St. Anselm and St. Bernard. The Cistercians and then the Servites undertook to propagate it. It became widespread in the fourteenth and especially the fifteenth centuries, particularly in the Rhineland and Flanders, where Confraternities of the Sorrowful Mother sprang up. It was in this context that the first liturgical formularies in her honor were composed. A provincial council of Mainz in 1423 made use of these in establishing a “Feast of the Sorrows of Mary” in reparation for Hussite profanations of her images.
In 1494 the feast appeared in Bruges, where the Precious Blood of Christ was venerated; later on it made its way into France. It did not, however, become widespread in France before Benedict XIII included it in the Roman Calendar in 1727 and assigned it to the Friday before Palm Sunday.
Some Churches had previously celebrated this feast during the Easter season. Others, however, celebrated the Joys of the Blessed Virgin during the Easter season, as is still done today at Braga. In some places it was entitled “Recollection of the Feasts and Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/09_1.cfm
PRAYER
Seven Prayers to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows
O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
1. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the affliction of your tender heart at the prophecy of the holy and aged Simeon. Dear Mother, by your heart so afflicted, obtain for me the virtue of humility and the gift of the holy fear of God. Hail Mary…
2. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the anguish of your most affectionate heart during the flight into Egypt and your sojourn there. Dear Mother, by your heart so troubled, obtain for me the virtue of generosity, especially toward the poor, and the gift of piety. Hail Mary…
3. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in those anxieties which tried your troubled heart at the loss of your dear Jesus. Dear Mother, by your heart so full of anguish, obtain for me the virtue of chastity and the gift of knowledge. Hail Mary…
4. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the consternation of your heart at meeting Jesus as He carried His Cross. Dear Mother, by your heart so troubled, obtain for me the virtue of patience and the gift of fortitude. Hail Mary…
5. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the martyrdom which your generous heart endured in standing near Jesus in His agony. Dear Mother, by your afflicted heart obtain for me the virtue of temperance and the gift of counsel. Hail Mary…
6. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, in the wounding of your compassionate heart, when the side of Jesus was struck by the lance before His Body was removed from the Cross. Dear Mother, by your heart thus transfixed, obtain for me the virtue of fraternal charity and the gift of understanding. Hail Mary…
7. I grieve for you, O Mary most sorrowful, for the pangs that wrenched your most loving heart at the burial of Jesus. Dear Mother, by your heart sunk in the bitterness of desolation, obtain for me the virtue of diligence and the gift of wisdom. Hail Mary…
Let Us Pray:
Let intercession be made for us, we beseech You, O Lord Jesus Christ, now and at the hour of our death, before the throne of Your mercy, by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Your Mother, whose most holy soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow in the hour of Your bitter Passion. Through You, O Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns world without end.
