We are still in Lent, so in case readers would like to recharge their Lenten reading matter Gracewing has produced The Rosary of Our Lady of Sorrows by Anthony Jeremy (£2.50). The author, who teaches Canon Law at Cardiff University and who was received into the Church within the Ordinariate, is clearly knowledgeable about the history of this devotion and passionate about making it more widely known.
For those who have not encountered it before, the Seven Sorrows are: The prophecy of Simeon; the flight into Egypt; the loss of Jesus in the Temple; meeting Jesus on the way of the Cross; Jesus Dying on the Cross; Mary receiving the body of her Son; and Jesus is laid in the tomb. Well-known from the Gospels, these selected incidents remind us of the anguish that Mary bore in her heart. Cardinal Newman is quoted as commenting that “the pains of the soul may be as fierce as those of the body”. Indeed, as great novelists and dramatists show us, they might be worse.
