MSFS

Patroness

Our Lady of Sorrows (Compassion) is our patroness and our Founder Fr. Peter Mermier had a special devotion to the Mother of Sorrows. On 15 September we celebrate her feast. This celebration reminds us of our call to participate in the redemptive suffering of Jesus for the humanity today. We are called to suffer for others, to suffer for the mission we have been entrusted with and we have taken it up as intrinsic to our missionary and religious commitment. Compassion also means ‘to be with’. It is a call to be with the suffering humanity, our people, our confreres. We are called to be compassionate to people in every sense of the term. In our schools, parishes, formation houses, we must educate people to be compassionate in a world of competition. This is the tradition of life each one of us is called to inherit from our founder and pioneers. It has been a good tradition in the province to renew our religious commitment on the Feast of Mother of Compassion in our apostolic communities and formation houses. It is not that we are unmindful of our commitment to the Lord but rather we re-focus ourselves and this renewal as a community has deep bearing on each one of us. We find the meaning of this renewal in 1Thes 4/1- “Finally, brothers, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus; we instructed you how to live in the way that pleases God, and you are so living; but make more progress still”.

HYMN TO THE MOTHER OF SORROWS
O Mother most afflicted
Standing beneath that tree
Where Jesus stands rejected
On the hill of Calvary
O Mary sweetest Mother
We love to pity thee
O for the sake of Jesus
Let us thy children be
O dear and loving mother
Entreat that we may be
Near to thee and thy dear Jesus
Now and eternally