Hope Found Amid Sorrow - Weekday Homily Video

When parents leave the hospital with their newborn, it’s one of the strangest moments in life. The nurse hands you this tiny human and says, “Congratulations, you can go home now.” And you think: That’s it? No manual comes with it? No training session? Not even a return policy? One dad told me he drove home from the hospital at fifteen miles an hour, with the mother and the newborn, with hazard lights flashing, convinced that every pothole was a death trap for the newborn.

Another mother confessed that she spent the first week constantly checking if her baby was still breathing, until her husband joked, “If you keep touching and feeling the child every five minutes, none of us will ever sleep again.” Parenting begins with this comedy of fear and love. You’re overwhelmed, exhausted, terrified, and yet you would do anything for that child. 

Simeon’s words to Mary, from Luke's Gospel, “A sword will pierce your own soul too,” capture that same mystery. Love opens you to joy but also to the deepest wounds. Every parent, every spouse, and every friend who has loved knows this truth: to embrace love is to risk being pierced.

Faith Taller than Sorrow

The Old Testament gives us a startling parallel in the story of the mother from the second book of Maccabees. She stood by as each of her seven sons was executed for refusing to betray their faith. Can you imagine? Yet instead of despair, she spoke courage into them: “Look at the heavens and the earth, recognize that God made them all.” Her heart was torn, but her faith stood taller than her sorrow. She reminds us that sometimes the only way to honor love is to let it cost us everything. 

Just two weeks ago, this nation witnessed such sorrow. On August 27, 2025, during morning Mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, a gunman opened fire from outside the church. Two children were killed, and seventeen were injured. Parents rushed in, teachers shielded students, and older kids led the younger ones to safety. One mother later said she hid her preschooler under her coat and whispered, “If they ask, just say you’re a blueberry.” It was absurd, even humorous, but it gave her child a reason to smile in the middle of that terror. That’s the strange alchemy of love: it finds a way to turn even fear into tenderness. 

Standing Inside Suffering

We also witnessed recently how love, faith, and conflict collide in the story of Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot at Utah Valley University while speaking in front of a crowd. His death reminds us that swords pierce not only in the private places of loss, but also in the public arenas where voices ring out, and suffering becomes communal. 

Mary knew that same alchemy. She did not stand above suffering; she stood inside it, at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, at Calvary alone and with a community of believers. She did not shield Jesus from pain but stood with Him in it. That’s why devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows is so enduring. She does not offer us a theology detached from tears; she offers companionship that says: “I know what it is to be pierced. I know what it is to grieve. And I know what it is to trust even then.” 

Wisdom of Blessed Basil Moreau

That is why Blessed Basil Moreau, founder of Holy Cross, placed our whole Congregation under her patronage. He consecrated priests to the Sacred Heart, sisters to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and brothers to St. Joseph, but he entrusted the entire family of Holy Cross to Our Lady of Sorrows. He knew that if Holy Cross were to serve faithfully, it would need to learn from the one who suffered much and yet remained steadfast in faith. 

The Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross remind us: “There stood by the Cross of Jesus his mother Mary, who knew grief and was a Lady of Sorrows. She is our special patroness, a woman who bore much she could not understand and who stood fast. To her many sons and daughters… she tells much of this daily cross and its daily hope.” (Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross, 8:120) 

This is our charism: to see the Cross not as the end, but as the doorway of hope. Ave Crux, Spes Unica, Hail the Cross, our only hope. In Mary’s pierced heart, we learn that grief is not the enemy of faith but its proving ground. 

Friends, the sword will come. But like Mary, we are called not to despair, but to stand fast, knowing that the God who raises the dead will bring forth life. And maybe, just maybe, to whisper something small and absurd that carries hope, because sometimes the holiest thing we can do in sorrow is to remind one another that the story is not over. The best is yet to come. 
  

• Today’s Readings
  
  
• Father Boby's inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center this morning. You can view the Mass (and the Rosary at the 30-minute mark) on the Family Rosary YouTube page.
  
  
• To join the Rosary and Mass Livestream, visit the Family Rosary YouTube or Facebook page at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, Monday – Friday. Consider inviting others to join, too! (*If you are not a member of Facebook and a signup window appears, simply select the X at the top of the pop-up message and continue to the livestream.)