An Invitation to Women from Our Sorrowful Mother   

   In 2009 Our Sorrowful Mother came to visit me in my home in the form of a YouTube video that a friend sent me, with a Catholic singer/songwriter, Annie Karto's song, "Come to the Cross." It is the call of our Sorrowful Mother to her suffering children:
 

                 Come to the Cross,
                      come stand by me.
                      I who am your Mother
                      love you tenderly.
                      I see your tears;
                      I know your pain.
                      In my pierced heart
                      I felt the same.

For me that song was one Sorrowful Mother reaching out to another sorrowful mother, her daughter.  The first several times that I heard it I cried. My daughter, Sofia, who was 20 at the time, is mentally handicapped with autism, and at that time she was having severe problems with aggression. My husband was gone from home a lot, working, and so I was often left to face Sofia’s severe problems alone. My husband and I were doing everything we could think of to try to help Sofia, with no success, and I was “praying without ceasing,” but her aggression was not ceasing. When I began listening to that song, I began to experience our Sorrowful Mother’s presence with me, comforting me; I no longer felt alone.
                I also began to pray the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, and through that prayer, my bond with Our Sorrowful Mother was deepened and strengthened. I not only felt her presence with us in our suffering. I also began to experience and share Mary’s sorrow for her other suffering children: aborted babies; mothers and fathers of aborted babies; abused and neglected children; and many others. I received the grace of much greater patience with Sofia, and she calmed down a lot.
                In September of 2009 I went to a retreat at Our Sorrowful Mother’s Ministry in Vandalia, Illinois. The week before the retreat, while praying, I received a mental image of Jesus tenderly pressing my head to His Heart and wiping my face, my mouth, and the back of my neck with a damp washcloth. He told me that He was wiping the shame from my face; the grief from my mouth; and the depression from the back of my neck.
                On the second day of the retreat, I walked into the hall where we were meeting and knelt before the image of the Divine Mercy. I opened my heart to Jesus without words. Then I went to my seat, and we soon began praying the Seven Sorrows Rosary. During the rosary, I looked up at the very large banner of our Sorrowful Mother, and I felt that she was sad for me.  A mental image came to me of Mary rocking me in her arms, and I began to cry: at first silently, then out loud; then I sobbed uncontrollably.
                At the end of the rosary, I went to one of the members of the prayer teams: a gentle lady  who had prayed for me the night before, and I asked if she could meet with me privately. She met with me at 3:00 that afternoon, and I shared with her the pain of the abortions I had had as a young woman. I had confessed those sins 18 years before, and I knew that God had forgiven me. I had received much healing in the years since, but the Lord had appointed a deeper healing for me that day.  That loving lady prayed and prayed and prayed for me, as I shared my pain, and through her, our Merciful Lord Jesus washed from my heart a tremendous amount of shame, grief, and depression. Our Sorrowful Mother had carried me to Jesus, who had healed the wounds of a deeper sorrow.

“…I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My merciful Heart.” (Jesus’ words to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary, 1588)

                When I returned home, in prayer and through spiritual reading, the Lord and Our Sorrowful Mother began to communicate to me their desire that I start a prayer apostolate for women, to be called Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother. The Lord has blessed the Little Handmaids with a spiritual director who is a priest with a strong devotion to our Blessed Mother and to Our Eucharistic Lord. 

Mary is sending this invitation to any woman who desires to consecrate herself to Jesus through our Sorrowful Mother:

The Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother is an internet prayer apostolate of women consecrated to Jesus through the Heart of Our Sorrowful Mother; giving honor to, and thanks for, the compassion of our Sorrowful Mother and the Divine Mercy of Jesus. We intercede for the restoration of the Church through sacramental confession in a spirit of humility; for the restoration of the true dignity and vocation of women; for the healing of marriages and families; for the protection and blessing of all children, from the moment of conception; and for the restoration of the soul of our nation(s).

If you would like more information about Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother, contact Cami Murphy at
                                                       littlehandmaids@gmail.com

Please pray for the blossoming of the Little Handmaids of Our Sorrowful Mother, in our individual hearts, and as an apostolate.