The Solemnity of Our Lady of Sorrows
Homily given by Deacon T.J. Groden, C.S.C., at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on September 15, 2025
“Woman, behold your son.” In other words, “Woman, what you just endured for me – the anguish, the torment, the heart pierced with bitter sorrow, the pain, the desolation, the tears – I need you to do this for my beloved disciple, and then for everyone.” And she has. What we celebrate today is not just that Our Lady of Sorrows stood fast at her son’s cross two thousand years ago, but that she has stood at the foot of every single cross since then. For in today’s Gospel, Jesus gifts his mother to the Church and, in turn, entrusts the Church with his mother. And so, at the foot of every cross – small or large, personal or communal, temporary or chronic, embraced or shirked – at the foot of every cross since that fateful day stands Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, a woman who, as our Constitutions declare, “bore much she could not understand and who stood fast.”
Mary is the first disciple of Christ, our model in faith. Under the title of Our Lady of Sorrows, she shows us how to grapple with suffering and pain and what to do when we inevitably encounter the cross in our lives.
Embrace the cross. Remain there. Raise your eyes to the Lord.
Embrace the cross. Go there. Our Lady of Sorrows shows us that the cross cannot be simply witnessed from a distance. It can’t be avoided or put off until a more convenient time. We have to go there, we have to get close, we have to deal with it. There is no path to eternal life except straight through the cross. Our Lady of Sorrows also shows us that we are to meet others at the foot of their crosses, that this is part of what discipleship is. For those of us in Holy Cross, this – above all else – is our vocation. No matter what the latest assignment list says, what our obedience letter may state, our first and most fundamental obedience as Holy Cross religious is to accompany the People of God at the cross.
Remain there. Even when it gets tough. Especially when it gets tough. We don’t go, get our ticket punched, and move on. We stay fast, we remain in the most difficult moments. We carry our own crosses with patience and perseverance and we remain with others as they carry theirs — whether it’s a tough moment, a difficult stretch, or a lifelong burden. We heard in the beautiful Stabat Mater sequence that Mary watched with “noble resignation” and “burning eyes” as she watched her son on the cross. She lived up to the “yes” that she had given thirty years prior, “let it be done to me according to thy word.”
Raise your eyes to the Lord. Look up. Mary could have kept her head down, literally and metaphorically, but she didn’t. She looked up to her son, as painful as it may have been. And in doing so, she saw his glory, she saw the hope that is promised in the cross, the victory won there by her son. And she beckons us to raise our eyes as well to help our friends and families raise their eyes, so that, in the words of the author George Bernanos, we may “feel the sweet presence of Jesus Christ who makes into one reality sorrow and joy, life and death.”
How lucky are we in Holy Cross that our founder, Blessed Basil Moreau, chose Our Lady of Sorrows as the patroness for our entire community – priests, brothers, and sisters (and deacons, too!). Mary is our model in how to endure suffering, how to accompany others, how to open and raise our eyes to the victory of the cross. But she’s also simply there with us, holding us with a mother’s love, interceding for us. Moreau, in a homily only a few years after Holy Cross was formed, wrote, “You all know what we mean when we speak of a mother’s love … a love that makes her think constantly about [her children] … what is more tender, stronger, more generous, and more heroic? This is only a feeble image of what Mary’s heart feels for each one of us and of the love that burns there for us since she became our mother and adopted us as her children.”
I doubt that Father Moreau could have envisioned how fitting this choice would prove to be for Holy Cross, a community that endured and survived some very dark and challenging periods, and for himself, who, like Christ, suffered rejection and abandonment from many who pledged to follow him. That Holy Cross has flourished, that this university has succeeded so tremendously, that Fr. Moreau is again studied and celebrated — I believe these are testaments to the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows.
I will never forget my novice master, Fr. Ken Molinaro, C.S.C., who told me with a twinkle in his eye – as if it were a secret between the two of us – that when you’re really out of options and don’t know where to turn or what to do, you go to the Blessed Mother, as “she will never let you down.”
As I look back on my own path to Holy Cross, I am more and more confident that it truly was Our Lady of Sorrows who led me here. Sometimes I joke that she met me at the foot of the cross … and brought some pamphlets from our Vocations office. I’m grateful for it.
And so, as we celebrate this great solemnity, let us pray that we may always and everywhere stand fast with Mary at the foot of the cross, raising our eyes and the eyes of others to Jesus, the one who “offers us a share in his life, a life more powerful and enduring than any sin or death.” May we truly be worthy children of so noble a mother.
Deacon T.J. Groden, C.S.C.
Published September 16, 2025
Photo: Michelangelo’s Pietà, St. Peter’s Basilica, wikipedia commons
