Traditional prayer
The Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows (Rosary of the Seven Dolours)
Act of Contrition. O my Lord, Thou who alone art most worthy of my love, behold me standing before thy Divine Presence utterly overwhelmed by the thought of the many grievous injuries I have done Thee.
I ask thy pardon for them with my whole heart, repenting of them purely for love of Thee, and at the thought of thy great goodness hating and loathing them above every evil of this life. As I would rather have died a thousand times than have offended Thee, so now I am most firmly resolved to die a thousand deaths rather than offend Thee again.
My crucified Jesus, I firmly purpose to cleanse my soul as soon as possible by thy most Precious Blood in the Sacrament of Penance. And thou, most tender Virgin, Mother of mercy and Refuge of sinners, do thou obtain for me by virtue of thy bitter pains, the pardon of sin which I desire; whilst, praying according to the mind of so many holy Pontiffs in order to obtain the Indulgences granted to this thy holy Rosary, I hope thereby to obtain remission of all pains due to my sins.
With this confidence in my heart, I meditate on the First Sorrow, when Mary, Virgin Mother of my God, presented Jesus her only Son in the Temple, laid Him in the arms of holy and aged Simeon, and heard his prophetic word, “The sword of grief shall pierce thy soul,” foretelling thereby the Passion and Death of her Son Jesus. Pater once, Ave seven times.
The Second Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin was when she was obliged to fly into Egypt by reason of the persecution of cruel Herod, who impiously sought to slay her well beloved Son. Pater once, Ave seven times.
The Third Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin was when, after having gone up to Jerusalem at the Paschal Feast with Joseph her spouse and Jesus her beloved Son, she lost Him on the way back to her poor house, and for three days bewailed the loss of her only Love. Pater once, Ave seven times.
The Fourth Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin was when she met her dear Son Jesus carrying to Mount Calvary on his tender shoulders the heavy Cross whereon He was to be crucified for our salvation. Pater once, Ave seven times.
The Fifth Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin was when she saw her Son Jesus raised upon the hard tree of the Cross, and blood flowing from every part of his sacred Body, and then beheld Him die after three hours’ agony. Pater once, Ave seven times.
The Sixth Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin was when she saw the lance pierce the sacred Side of Jesus, her beloved Son, the nails withdrawn, and his holy Body laid in her purest bosom. Pater once, Ave seven times.
The Seventh and last Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin, Queen and Advocate of us, her servants, miserable sinners, was when she saw the holy Body of her Son buried in the grave. Pater once, Ave seven times.
Then say Ave thrice in veneration of the tears which Mary shed in her sorrows, to obtain thereby true sorrow for sins and the holy Indulgences attached to this pious exercise.
V. Pray for us, Virgin most sorrowful.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray.
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, that the most blessed Virgin Mary, thy Mother, may intercede for us before the throne of thy mercy, now and at the hour of our death, whose most holy soul was transfixed with the sword of sorrow in the hour of thine own Passion. Through Thee, Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world, who livest and reignest, etc. Amen.
About this prayer
This is the chaplet of the Servants of Mary. The Raccolta of 1910 describes it as seven divisions in memory of Our Lady’s seven sorrows: at each, an Our Father (Pater) and seven Hail Marys (Ave), meditating on the sorrow if we can, and at the end three Hail Marys in honour of her tears. The act of contrition that opens it is the chaplet’s own; the Prayer Book’s Act of Contrition, from the Baltimore Catechism, has its own page. The Order of the Servants of Mary, the Servites, was founded in 1233 (Vatican News), and in 1239 its seven founders took up Our Lady’s sorrows beneath the Cross as the principal devotion of their order (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912). The Raccolta still speaks of beads blessed by a Servite Father.
The seven sorrows, and where to read them in the Douay-Rheims: (1) the prophecy of Simeon, “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:34–35); (2) the flight into Egypt, “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt” (Matthew 2:13–15); (3) the loss of the Child in Jerusalem for three days, “thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (Luke 2:41–51); (4) the meeting on the way to Calvary, which the Gospels do not narrate: it is held by tradition, beside the women who “bewailed and lamented him” on that road (Luke 23:27); (5) at the foot of the Cross, “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother” (John 19:25–30); (6) the taking down from the Cross, after the soldier’s spear “opened his side” and Joseph of Arimathea “took the body of Jesus” (John 19:34, 38); that the Body was laid in His Mother’s arms is the tradition the chaplet follows; (7) the burial in the new sepulchre (John 19:40–42; Luke 23:53–55). The chaplet’s words for Simeon’s prophecy, “The sword of grief shall pierce thy soul,” are its own rendering of Luke 2:35.
Why dwell on her sorrows? Because she did not leave. The Catechism teaches that Mary kept faith with her Son all the way to the Cross, stood there as God had planned, united with a mother’s heart to the offering He made of Himself, and was given by Him to His disciple as mother (CCC 964). Whatever she does for us still comes from Christ’s merits and rests wholly on Him, the one Mediator (CCC 970). To pray these sorrows is to stand with her and learn how to stay.
A note on the old text. The Act of Contrition prays “to obtain the Indulgences granted to this thy holy Rosary” and hopes for “remission of all pains due to my sins”; the closing rubric speaks of “the holy Indulgences attached to this pious exercise.” These are the grants the Raccolta listed in 1910, counted in days and years and tied to beads blessed by a Servite Father or another with special faculties. They belong to their time. Pope Paul VI’s Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967) ended the counting of partial indulgences in days or years (norm 4), ordered the Church’s collection of indulgenced prayers and the special lists of grants of religious orders and associations to be revised (norms 13–14), ended the indulgences attached to religious objects other than those it names, and let lapse every indulgence not confirmed within two years (transitional norms). So the old list is not reproduced here, and the old words are not a statement of what the Church grants today: pray them as an act of sorrow for sin and of trust in her prayer. Where the closing prayer reads “etc.,” the book abbreviates the customary ending of the prayer. The Church keeps the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows on 15 September, the day after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a date fixed by Pope Pius X (Vatican News).
When to pray it
- On Fridays, the day of the Cross.
- On 15 September, Our Lady of Sorrows, and through Lent and Holy Week.
- After a death, a diagnosis or a loss, when sorrow has no words of its own.
- With older children, one sorrow a night through a week.
- Kneeling before a crucifix or an image of the Mother holding her Son.
Any indulgences named on this page are those recorded in the older prayer books it cites. Pope Paul VI reformed the Church's indulgences in 1967 (Indulgentiarum Doctrina); the current rules are in the Church's Enchiridion of Indulgences.