Follow Sonja’s Method of Prayer with the Sorrowful Mysteries During Your Next Holy Hour
Pray the Rosary as usual, asking the Lord to lead you through the path to healing as you pray with the Sorrowful Mysteries.
After announcing each mystery, read and meditate briefly on the Bible verse provided (if desired). Then after completing the Our Father, read the intention for that mystery before continuing with Hail Mary on each bead for that decade. The meditations are from Sonja Corbitt, adapted from page 1555 in the Living the Word Catholic Women’s Bible, and the scriptures are taken from “Praying the Scriptural Rosary” in the appendix to the same.
1. The Agony in the Garden – Matthew 26:36–39
What has the Lord revealed to you about where you need healing? Pray with the intention of going to Gethsemane with Jesus, accepting the difficulties he allows and giving him permission to heal us.
2. The Scourging at the Pillar – John 18:36–38, 19:1
Pray with the intention of retracing your wounds him and in his presence. “With his stripes we are healed” (Is 53:5). As you recall each wound, ask Jesus what he wants you to know about it.
3. The Crowning with Thorns – Matthew 27:28–31
Pray with the intention of breaking cycles of sin for yourself and your family, so that the thorns that hurt you become your crown.
4. The Carrying of the Cross – Mark 15:21–22
Pray with the intention of carrying your cross, whether of the one who wounded you or of your predominant fault, through the healing process throughout your life. With this decade, commit yourself afresh to healing: it is not an event but a process of ever-deeper self-knowledge.
5. The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus – Luke 23:33–34
Pray with thanksgiving that one day you will know “It is finished,” as Jesus says from the Cross. There will be an end to the pain. Like him, fall into the arms of our mother Mary in your very own Pieta.
