Lenten Prayer and Reflection

Rosary of the Seven Sorrows

Though devotion to Out Sorrowful Mother has always been a part of Catholic Piety, the actual recitation of the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows was originated by the Servite Fathers in the 13th century.  In the same century, St. Bridget also championed devotion to Our Sorrowful Mother. In 1982, when Our Lady appeared in Kibeho, Rwanda, to the visionary, Marie Claire Mukangango, she told her that this Rosary had been almost totally forgotten by the faithful and it would be her mission in life to reintroduce it to the world. Our Lady pleaded that this Rosary, along with the traditional Rosary, be prayed regularly. Our Blessed Mother's apparitions in Kibeho were approved by the Church on June 29, 2001.

The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows recalls the most significant sorrows Our Lady endured in her life. Praying this Rosary, while meditating on her grief and pain, will lead us to Jesus. The purpose of this Rosary is to promote union with Jesus through union with the sorrows that she endured because she was His Mother.

Like the traditional Rosary, the Seven Sorrows Rosary is a "bead-prayer". The beads are designed to keep count of the prayers. The beads are organized into seven sets of seven beads. A single bead representing one the Seven Sorrows precedes each set. The Our Father is prayed on that bead. The seven beads in each set are used to pray the Hail Mary. In other words, The Seven Sorrow Rosary consists on one Our Father and the Hail Mary seven times for each of The Seven Sorrows.

 

Our Lady of Kibeho

Kibeho is a small town in the southern part of the country of Rwanda, Africa. Today, Kibeho is best known as a place of pilgimages and apparitions of Our Blessed Mother which have been recognized by the Church since 2001.

The apparitions of Kibeho began on November 28th, 1981, and came to an end on November 28th, 1989. Our Lady first appeared to Alphonsine Mumureke, a 16-year-old girl, while she was still in high school. A short while later two other young students also claimed to have had visions: Natalie Mukamazimpaka, a 17-year-old girl who saw Our Lady for almost two years, beginning in January 1982; and 21-year-old Marie Claire Mukangango, also a student, to whom Mary appeared from March to September 1982, giving her the mission of spreading her Rosary of the Seven Sorrows throughout the world.
 

The message that Our Lady delivered in Kibeho is an urgent appeal to the world: a call for repentance and the conversion of hearts, for sincere prayer, a call to love and to live the faith intensely.  But it is above all a call for personal reconciliation with Almighty God.