Day 40: Comforter of the Afflicted, Pray for Us!

Down through the ages good Christians have suffered, and often they keep such grief to themselves. The unspoken pain of a mother who ponders her son’s deep disappointments, the husband who agonizes over his secret infidelities, the son who murmurs silent words of thanksgiving too late at the graveside of his father, and the very real physical pains and discomforts of the poor and downtrodden. But the elderly – often they are the ones who have been most afflicted. Perhaps that is why devotion to the Blessed Mother becomes a welcome relief in old age. The American author Willa Cather put it so well in one of the finest novels ever written, Death Comes for the Archbishop. She wrote: “Old people, who have felt blows and toil and known the world’s hard hand, need, even more than children do, a woman’s tenderness. Only a woman, divine, could know all that a woman could suffer.”

Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for us.

On Saturdays we pray the Joyful Mysteries.

PRAY YOUR DAILY ROSARY WITH US!

Be sure to join us this evening at 7:00 pm CT for the Family Rosary Across America® on your local Relevant Radio station and the Relevant Radio App.

If you have missed a previous novena reflection, you can find all of them here. Or subscribe to receive these reflections in your inbox each morning.

Rev. Francis J. Hoffman, "Fr. Rocky" is the Executive Director/CEO of Relevant Radio and a priest of Opus Dei.