Pietà, Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1499

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, also formerly called the Seven Dolors of Our Lady, the principal patronal feast of the University of Notre Dame's Congregation of Holy Cross. The feast has its own litany and chaplet, that of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, which seems to have an association with the Servite Order. Indeed, the Servite's feast on September 15 is the origin of the current commemoration on the calendar, as formerly the feast fell variously on the third sunday of September and also during Lent. The Servites also comemmorated it on July 9 in their own calendar. The Seven Sorrows were events throughout the Virgin's life, beginning with the prophesy of Simeon Senex, while Our Lady of Sorrows seems to have more of an association with the events of the Passion of Christ (particularly through many famous images showing her cradling the lifeless body of Her Son), though Her heart is nonetheless shown pierced by the seven swords of the Dolors.

Today is also the feast of St. Adam of Caithness, a Cistercian bishop burnt to death by his parishioners after raising their tithes, and who never seems to have been officially canonized. After him are variously a St. and a Bl. Aichardus, both monastics, as well as St. Catherine of Genoa, who had a vision of Savanarola in glory and is the patron saint of a friend of mine's car, and is shown (in a portrait by the female artist Tomasina Fieschi) having been a slight woman with a long, patrician nose; prominent cleft chin, smiling, broad but thin lips; high cheekbones; and large dark eyes punctuated by thin, graceful eyebrows. She also seems to have had laugh lines, though I don't see them in the picture, which frankly makes her kinda scary-looking despite that appealing catalogue of features. She is patroness of those ridiculed for their piety.

On the calendar today are also a St. Emile and a St. Jeremy, both from Cordoba; St. Nicetas the Goth, presumably the patron of black lipstick and body piercing; and the martyr St. Nicomides of Rome, whose emblem is a spiked club, which sounds kinda Gothic as well.