Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, FEAST OF, a festival of the Roman Catholic Church, dating from 1423, and since 1725 celebrated on the Friday preceding Palm Sunday. The 'dolours' or sorrows of the Blessed Virgin have long been a favourite theme of Roman Catholic devotion, of which the pathetic hymn Stabat Mater (q.v.) is the best known and most popular expression; and the festival of the Seven Dolours is intended to individualise the incidents of her sorrows, and to present them for meditation. The seven incidents referred to under the title of 'dolours' are (1) the prediction of Simeon (Luke ii. 35; of which, indeed, the whole seven are the fulfilment); (2) the flight into Egypt; (3) the loss of the child Jesus in Jerusalem; (4) the sight of Jesus bearing the cross; (5) the sight of Jesus upon the cross; (6) the descent from the cross; (7) the entombment. The festival is now observed as a 'greater double' (see FESTIVALS). A second one, instituted by Pius VII. in 1814, falls on the third Sunday of September.
Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, FEAST OF
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 9: Bound to Swansea, p. 332
Source scan(s): p. 0345