I have the same emotions every year. The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (celebrated yesterday) brings inside me a devastating feeling as if I have lost my two children. A deep sense of loss, more so now that I have lost my own mother.

Ever since I was young, the feeling of desolation on this special day evoked in me feelings of fear, a feeling that, though I looked at our Lady of Sorrows with tear-filled eyes and prayed whole-heartedly, somehow I felt my prayers were never answered.

It was only through the passing of time and experience that I learnt that I had things turned “upside down”. I asked our Lady of Sorrows that my “will” be done, that “my” plans be accomplished, that she would put herself at “my” service. Only time and suffering made me adopt just the opposite attitude.

Now I ask Mary, Mother of God’s will be done, that her plans for me may come to pass, that I may put myself at her service. It is not a question of changing our Lady Mary or of giving her orders, rather it’s a matter of changing myself, of placing myself completely in her hands.

If we want to hear some music on a radio, first we have to turn it on. If we want to contact our Lady of Sorrows, who suffered agonies, we have to pray – that is, we have to dispose ourselves to receive her grace and love.

Every year as I look at Our Lady of Sorrows I feel inside me those shattered dreams, a certain dissatisfaction with life in general, a sense of rancour that things did not turn out as I wanted them to. I feel a certain sense of discouragement until I look deep into her sorrow-filled eyes that seem to be saying just to me “I love you, I am here for you”.

Sadly, what we don’t seem to realise is that if we are adamant about searching for an ultimate paradise on earth, we will all be thoroughly disappointed. Our Lady of Sorrows’ eyes deliver a silent message: that we will achieve definitive self-fulfilment only in the next life.

This does not, however, dispense us from our obligation to struggle for the coming of this paradise, for the heavenly kingdom has its roots securely planted in the earthly one. We have to devote much of our time to the needs of the body but in the final analysis, it is the spirit that is really the ultimate principle of authentic beauty.

Though as I stated previously I have learnt that God’s and her will be done, I still feel as if a thousand scalding bottles of hot liquid are being poured down my insides.

I think of when I was a child, when sorrow and death had not yet touched me, when the weight of worry was not on my shoulders, when my sadness on that day was precisely for her and her alone for the way she endured endless heartbreak for her son’s untimely death at the age of 33.

I know with a certainty that all those who followed our Lady of Sorrows in procession have one thing in common. We all feel the frightening and ubiquitous presence of suffering, of worries, of anxiety. To live means to suffer.

I feel my sorrow reflected in her eyes. We all have sorrows, we all have problems.

Those of us who deny the latter have a graver problem – they are liars. Our Lady of Sorrows, teach us to yearn for your undying devotion, teach us that sorrow and joy go hand in hand in this game of life, but most of all teach us that prayer is an act of faith, that if we no longer take the trouble to pray, we will soon find out that we no longer recognise and hear you talking to us through the circumstances of our life.

In order to “see” you and understand what you say to us, we have to look for you, God’s mother, and listen to you in those brief daily encounters that prayers make possible.

Valerie Borg

MLP councillor

Valletta