The Healing Journey

September 15, 2024

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, author Immaculee Ilibagiza says, “Every member of my immediate and extended family was murdered during the slaughter, and so was just about every other person I had ever loved or called a friend.” In later years, she developed a devotion to the Seven Sorrows of Mary, which helped her unite her suffering with that of Our Lady and Our Lord. Today we observe the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. The following is excerpted from her book, “A Blessing in Disguise: Miracles of the Seven Sorrows Rosary.”

“As I ruminated on the sorrows of Our Lady, I began to think of my own suffering. I thought of the pain that I had experienced throughout my life, but my thoughts traveled far beyond the personal. I began to consider all the pain that so many of us bury so deeply that we never give ourselves a chance to feel it. I also started thinking about all the pain and wickedness that cause many of us the world over to suffer, without reprieve. I was engulfed with a deep spiritual sorrow that seemed to take me into the heart of the human condition. The quality of this pain was sharp, searing, bitter . . . but not once did I feel alone inside this suffering. I felt as if standing over me was Our Lady, who had already gone through the worst travails, and who is now in heaven. I felt her presence, almost like a healing balm soothing my wounds, whispering sweet words of mercy and compassion as I wept. After this extraordinary experience, after all the tears had been wept, I was at peace. I spoke to her of my pain and how it hurt, and how unfair it was. I knew that she understood me perfectly. In speaking with her, I was removing the pain from the insular shelter of my heart and to the outside, where it could be cleansed. If somebody spoke to me unkindly, I told her about it. She knew what it is to be rejected, to be hated, to be hurt. I felt that in meditating on her suffering, I was growing in my capacity to love my enemies. I was growing in my capacity to look at my individual moments of suffering not as a terrible, frightful ordeal, but as periods that enabled me to unite myself with Jesus and Mary, and learn from them.”

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