CATHOLIC ARROWS

MAKE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

INTRODUCTORY PRAYERS

(on the Crucifix)

My God, I offer you this Rosary for Your glory, so that I can honour Your Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin, and share and meditate upon her suffering. I humbly beg You to give me true repentance for all my sins. Give me wisdom and humility so that I may receive all the indulgences contained in this prayer.

ACT CONTRITION

(on the Our Father bead)

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend You, my God, You who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to confess my sins, do penance, and amend my life. Amen.

Pray 3 Hail Mary’s in honour of the tears of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

(You can now either pray the entire 7 sorrows or pray the sorrow specific to the day of the week)

SUNDAY

V. O God, come to my assistance.

R. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Seventh Sorrow of Mary: The Burial of Jesus

Let us meditate now on Mary’s last sword of sorrow. She has witnessed the death of Her Son on the cross. She has embraced His lifeless body for the last time. Now She has to leave Him in the tomb.

Meditation 1

In order to grasp the meaning of this last sorrow more fully, let us return to Calvary and picture our afflicted Mother there, still holding the lifeless body of Her Son clasped in Her arms. The disciples, afraid that Mary may die of grief, approach and take the body of Jesus from Her arms to bury it. With reverence they lift it from Her arms, embalm it with aromatic herbs, and wrap it in a shroud they have already prepared. The mournful procession sets out for the tomb. The afflicted Mother follows Her Son to His last resting place. When it was time to move the stone to close the entrance, the grief-stricken disciples approached Our Blessed Lady and said to Her: “It is time now, O Lady, to close the tomb. Forgive us; look at Thy Son once more, and say goodbye to Him for the last time.”

Finally, they took the stone and sealed off the sacred Body of Jesus in the sepulcher, that Body which is the greatest treasure there can possibly be on earth or in Heaven. Mary left Her heart in the tomb of Jesus, because Jesus was Her whole treasure: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Lk. 12:34). After speaking Her last farewell to Her Son, She left and returned to Her home. Mary was so desolate and so sad that, according to St. Bernard, She, “moved many to tears.” In fact, wherever She passed, those who saw Her could not help weeping with Her. St. Bernard also says that the holy disciples and women who accompanied Her “mourned even more for Her than for their Lord.”

Meditation 2

Hastily the Body is wrapped in a clean linen cloth. Nicodemus has brought myrrh and aloes, and the Body is bound in the Shroud with them. nearby is a new tomb, belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, and there they lay Jesus. Mary and John and the holy women follow them and watch as the great stone to the sepulchre is rolled. It is the end.
I grieve for thee, O Mary most sorrowful, for the pangs that wrenched thy most loving heart at the burial of Jesus. Dear Mother, by thy heart sunk in the bitterness of desolation, obtain for me the virtue of diligence and the gift of wisdom.

Seventh Dolor

I pity thee, my afflicted mother, on account of the seventh sword that pierced thy heart, on seeing in thy arms thy Son who had just expired, no longer fair and beautiful as thou didst once receive him in the stable of Bethlehem, but covered with blood, livid, and lacerated by wounds which exposed his very bones. My Son, thou saidst, my Son, to what has love brought thee? And when he was borne to the sepulchre, thou didst wish to accompany him thyself, and help to put him in the tomb with thy own hands; and, bidding him a last farewell, thou hast left thy loving heart buried with thy Son. By all the anguish of thy pure soul, obtain for me, oh mother of fair love, pardon for the offences that I have committed against my God, whom I love, and of which I repent with my whole heart. Wilt thou defend me in temptations? Assist me at the hour of my death, that, being saved by the merits of Jesus and thine, I may come one day with thy aid, after this miserable exile, to sing in paradise the praises of Jesus and thine through all eternity. Amen.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Pray 7 Hail Mary’s

Verse: My Mother! share Thy grief with me, and let me bear Thee company to mourn Thy Jesus’ death with Thee.

Prayer of General Liguori

My afflicted Mother, I will not leave thee alone to weep; no, I wish to keep thee company with my tears. This grace I ask of thee to-day: obtain for me a continual remembrance of the passion of Jesus, and of thine also, and a tender devotion to them, that all the remaining days of my life may be spent in weeping for thy sorrows, O my Mother, and for those of my Redeemer, I hope that these dolors will give me the confidence and strength not to despair at the hour of my death, at the sight of the offences I have committed against my Lord. By these must I obtain pardon, perseverance, paradise, where I hope to rejoice with thee, and sing the infinite mercy of my God through all eternity: thus I hope, thus may it be. Amen, amen.

CONCLUDING PRAYERS

HAIL HOLY QUEEN: (Latin: Salve Regina)

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry,
poor banished children of Eve. 
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears 
Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us and, after this our exile
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb,
Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

V: Pray for us, O Virgin most sorrowful

R: That we may be made worthy of the promise of Christ

Let us pray

Let intercession be made for us, we beseech Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, now and at the hour of our death, before the throne of Thy mercy, by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy Mother, whose most holy soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow in the hour of Thy bitter Passion. Through Thee, Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world, Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen.

O God, at whose Passion, according to the prophecy of Simeon, a sword of sorrow did pierce through the most sweet soul of the glorious Virgin and Mother Mary; grant that we, who commemorate and reverence Her sorrows, may experience the blessed effect of Thy Passion, Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

QUEEN OF MARTYRS PRAYER

Queen of Martyrs, your heart suffered so much. I beg you, by the merits of the tears you shed in these terrible and sorrowful times, to obtain for me and all the sinners of the world the grace of complete sincerity and repentance. Amen.

Conclude with:

“Mary, who was conceived without sin and who suffered for us, pray for us” (3 times)