The Catholic Church has many scriptural and imaginative forms of prayer that have developed in its history.  A number of these prayers, such as the rosary, use “sacramentals” to aid a person in praying.  A sacramental is an object, action or prayer that disposes one to receive grace and to participate more fully in the sacraments.  Examples of sacramentals are the rosary, crucifixes, candles statues and the scapular. 

Another prayer-sacramental is also known as The Rosary (sometimes called a “chaplet”) of the Seven Sorrows of Mary.  I recently read about this Marian prayer in a book about apparitions that Mary made to a number of young people in the African country of Rwanda.  Our Lady of Kibeho: Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa, was written by Immaculee Ilibagiza, who also wrote the story of her amazing survival of the Rwandan genocide in the autobiography, Left to Tell.

In this recent account about Mary’s apparitions and messages, which started 1982 with students of a girls’ high school in Kibeho, Rwanda, Ilibagiza relates how the Blessed Virgin called the people of that region to meditate on the sufferings of her son, Jesus, as a way to grow in faith and in forgiveness of the injuries they suffered.  She also instructed the young visionaries to pray The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows in order to beseech God’s grace upon our world and to help each of us endure the sufferings that ultimately befall us in our lives.  The messages that Mary offered the various women and men were so faithful to Catholic beliefs that, in 2001, the Vatican approved Kibeho as a place of pilgrimage and prayer in honor of Mary.  This places the site of Kibeho on the same level of veneration as Lourdes, France and Fatima, Portugal.

The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows, which is explained at the end of Ilibagiza’s story, is composed of seven sets of seven Hail Marys.  Each set of prayers focuses upon one of the Seven Sorrows that Mary endured during her life as the Mother of Jesus.  The Seven Sorrows of Mary are:

1. The prediction of the prophet Simeon in the Temple
2. The flight of the Holy Family to Egypt to escape King Herod
3. The loss of Jesus in the Temple
4. The meeting of Mary with Jesus as he carries his Cross
5. The crucifixion of Jesus
6. The placing of the body of Jesus in the arms of Mary
7. The burial of Jesus in the sepulcher

Just as the Stations of the Cross and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary direct our attention to the sufferings that Jesus and Mary endured, so The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows helps us to value the great sacrifice that they made on our behalf.  During the season of Lent the seven sorrows could be another prayerful devotion to help us prepare for Holy Week and the joy of the resurrection.

The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows can be found in Catholic bookstores or online.