Saturday is traditionally the day in which we honour the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On most Saturdays of the year priests can offer a votive Mass in her honour and recitethe Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Liturgy of the hours) when there is no Memorial or Feast day.
This Tradition goes back to the Middle Ages. St Thomas Aquinas remarks that since the Resurrection was on a Sunday and became our Sabbath, our day of rest, our holy day, the day before, Saturday, Maryremained steadfast and unshaken in her faith, she did not waver despite her grief and pain. He is suggesting that this could be a reason that we honour Her on a Saturday.
On Fridays we contemplate and meditate on Jesus’s death, passion and suffering and on Saturdays we could also reflect on Our Lady’s sorrows. She too accepted the bitter chalice of suffering. She did not like Jesus suffer in body but like him she suffered in her soul. She suffered by accepting the sacrifice of her dear son’s life and this caused immense grief and intense pain.
Mary unites herself especially to those who suffer because of their own experiences of anguish and heartache that involve their children. Mary is never remote from us and invites us to draw some strength from her, in our own valley of tears.
Prayer of St Bridget of Sweden
“O Blessed Virgin Mary, Immaculate Mother of God, who didst endure a martyrdom of love and grief, beholding the sufferings and sorrows of Jesus. Thou didst co-operate in the benefit of my redemption by thy innumerable afflictions and by offering to the Eternal Father His only-begotten Son as a holocaust and victim of propitiation for my sins. I thank thee for the unspeakable love which led thee to deprive thyself of the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus, true God and true Man, to save me, a sinner. Oh, make use of the unfailing intercession of thy sorrows with the Father and the Son, that I may steadfastly amend my life and never again crucify my loving Redeemer by new sins, arid that, persevering till death in His grace, I may obtain eternal life through the merits of His Cross and Passion”. Amen.
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