THE ROSARY OF THE SEVEN SORROWS

Introduction and Transcribing: Matsiko Kahunga

One of the key missions and assignments Mother Mary left to the Voyantes during the Kibeho Apparitions was the reviving of the Rosary of Seven Sorrows. This assignment was given specifically to Marie Claire Mukangango. She received it during one of the public apparitions, and she was instructed to teach it to the entire world, starting with the Sisters in the college. Marie Claire received the instructions of how to recite this rosary, from Mother Mary herself. 

Sister Blandina, the sister at the then Kibeho Primary Teachers College, more associated with the Volantes during the apparitions, was the first one to take up the assignment, recalling her early catechetical lessons. According to Kibeho apparitions literature, the Seven Sorrows Rosary dates to the Middle Ages, but had been forgotten. This explains the fact that even the sisters at Kibeho and the Church in general, could not readily recall it. Marie Claire asked Mother Mary why the Sisters and the clergy could not remember this rosary. The reason, according to Mother Mary, is that humanity avoids what brings or reminds one of sadness, since the rosary highlights the sorrows that Mother Mary endured, as a mother in the course of her Son’s mission of man’s salvation. She instructed Marie Claire to revive it, as her assignment in the larger apparition mission of praying with Mother Mary, whose Kibeho message is: Nimusenge ubutitsa, musabira kiliziya ( pray ceaselessly, for the Church[world]….and Repent… Repent...Repent.

After receiving her last apparition, Marie Claire took up her assignment of teaching the reciting of this rosary across Rwanda. By 1994 when she was murdered alongside her husband in the genocide, she had taught thousands who in turn had taught other thousands. According to the Kibeho apparitions literature, it is to be recited on Tuesdays and Fridays, the former being the day when Mother Mary first appeared to Marie Claire, while Friday in the usual liturgical day for the Lord’s Passion. 

Scriptural Context: The Seven Sorrows

The seven sorrows that Mother Mary endured as she played her role in our salvation start form the birth of Jesus to His death and burial. The events are

1.  The Prophecy of Simeon

During the presentation of the Infant Jesus in the temple, Simeon prophesies the sword piercing Mary’s heart, as she was later to witness His suffering and death.

2. The Flight to Egypt, to save Infant Jesus from Herod

This is a journey of 300 miles during winter. St Joseph leads his family on donkey back while he walked, covering 100 miles of snow and 200 miles of desert sand. Mother Mary cuddling her baby against the cold windy winter.

3. Child Jesus Disappears and later Found in the Temple

When Jesus disappears from His parents during the Passover festival in Jerusalem. It takes the parents three days of searching, before finding him in the temple with the elders and scribes

4. Mary Meets Jesus Carrying the Cross This is after He has fallen for the third time and His eyes meet those of His mother as He rises to His feet, weighed down by the cross. Beaten, wounded and bleeding, His suffering becomes the sword that pierces the heart of His mother.

5. Mary at the foot of the Cross

Mary witnesses her Son being crucified by the Roman soldiers. The cross inflicts more pain as it tears flesh, deliberately jerked by the soldiers while they lift it to drop it in the hole

6. Mary Receives the Body of Jesus When Jesus is taken down from the cross, His body is received by His mother on her laps. This is the cover picture on most books about the seven sorrows rosary. She is holding and looking at the lifeless body of her Son. 

7. Mary witnesses the Burial of her Son After His body is prepared and placed in the tomb, Mary goes home, in pain and sorrow. True she knew Jesus was to resurrect but she suffered parental sorrow at His death.

How To Pray This Rosary

This rosary consists of seven ‘mysteries’ ( the sorrows above), each with seven beads( thus septennates, instead of decades as in the other mysteries). The first three beads and then the septennates are separated by a medal or another bead, depending on the design of a particular rosary.

The Opening Prayer

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

Act of Contrition

Oh 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 death, but most of all, because they offend You, my God. You who are good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my ways. Amen

• The first bead: Our Father…..

• The second three beads….Hail Mary, 3x

• The first sorrow…..

Then, Hail Mary 7x

• After each septennat, …’Most merciful Mother, remind us always about the sorrows of your Son, Jesus

Closing 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.

There may follow the Litany of the Seven Sorrows Rosary, closing with the invocation hereunder:

Mary who was conceived without sin and who suffered for us, pray for us…3x