Nine Day Prayer for Life: Novena to Our Lady of Sorrows

At times, it seems that life is threatened on all sides.
Please join with others across the nation in prayer.
For the nine days between September 7 (the vigil of the feast of the Birth of Mary) and September 15 (the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows), we pray for the intercession of Mary, the Mother of our Life, our Faith and our Hope.
Prepared by Rev. James Moroney, Executive Director, NCCB Secretariat for the Liturgy.

'As we contemplate this Mother, whose heart a sword has pierced (cf. Luke 2:35), our thoughts go to all the suffering women in the world, suffering either physically or morally. In this suffering a woman's sensitivity plays a role, even though she often succeeds in resisting suffering better than a man. 
It is difficult to enumerate these sufferings; it is difficult to call them all by name. We may recall her maternal care for her children, especially when they fall sick or fall into bad ways; the death of those most dear to her; the loneliness of mothers forgotten by their grown-up children; the loneliness of widows; the sufferings of women who struggle alone to make a living; and women who have been wronged or exploited. Then there are the sufferings of consciences as a result of sin, which has wounded the woman's human or maternal dignity: the wounds of consciences which do not heal easily. With these sufferings too we must place ourselves at the foot of the Cross.'

Pope John Paul II
(Mulieris Dignitatem, 21)