March 6, 2025 - Thursday after Ash Wednesday

As the saying goes, “and we are off”! Yesterday we began this Lenten journey with ashes on our foreheads. Today we immerse ourselves in the season of penance and sacrifice with our eyes fixed on the Cross of our Redemption. As these reflections unfold over the course of the weeks, we will hear from various people on the meaning of this important season focused on the Cup of sacrifice that Christ offers us as His followers. 

The artwork that you will encounter on this journey comes from the artist Sr. Mary of the Compassion (1908-1977). She was a Dominican nun of the Perpetual Rosary Monastery, also known as the Blue Chapel, in Union City, New Jersey. We chose her work to accompany our daily reflections because she portrays so well the suffering and passion of Our Lord through her Stations of the Cross sketches and other paintings on the Life of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. Sr. Mary of the Compassion produced these works right here in our Archdiocese; several works of her art are on display at the Immaculate Conception Seminary on the University campus. Several of her pieces are of darker tones and themes but others are bright and joyful, a reminder to us of where this Lenten Journey will take us. 

Sr. Mary of the Compassion was born Mary Constance Rowe in 1908 in London, England. She grew up in the Anglican tradition and from an early age demonstrated great artistic talent. She studied art and painting at the Royal College of Art in London. During her college years, Mary Rowe converted to the Catholic faith, and it was at this time that she felt called to religious life. She traveled to New York City in 1935 and found her way to Union City where she met the cloistered Dominican Sisters. It was here that she felt her call to live her religious vocation and to further her artistic work and talent. She entered in 1938, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and pledged her life to this monastery taking the religious name Sr. Mary of the Compassion.  

Her art career unfolded over the decades she lived in religious life. Her artwork encompasses a wide range of media: paintings, book illustrations, greeting and holy cards, silver and gold jewelry, mosaic reredos and embroidered panels, including secular and non-secular subject matter.  

Sr. Mary of the Compassion died in 1977 at the age of sixty-nine and is buried in Jersey City. Most of her work is catalogued and can be found at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City. 

Artist Sister Mary of the Compassion, OP (1908-1977)

This first image is from Sr. Mary of the Compassion’s series on the Stations of the Cross. It is a lithograph of a charcoal sketched depicting the eighth station, Jesus Meets the Weeping Women of Jerusalem. What is so striking about this image is that the women are holding the chalice as if to be presenting the chalice to Jesus. They are sorrowful to the point of weeping as they see Christ carrying His cross. It is Jesus who comforts them: weep not for me but for your children for the days that are coming you will suffer and endure persecution all in my Name. 

In today’s Gospel (Luke 9:22-25), we are reminded that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. This is what the Lenten Season invites us to do. This is what Jesus challenges us to do when He asks us if we can drink of this cup. This is what Sr. Mary of the Compassion reminds us of in her lithograph of the Weeping Women.  

As we begin this Lent, let us reflect upon what it means for us to bear our Crosses. To drink of the Cup Christ gives us. May it configure us more closely to Christ and may we accept this challenge. 

Prompt our actions with your inspiration, we pray, O Lord, and further them with your constant help, that all we do may always begin from you and by you be brought to completion. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Rev. Dominic Ciriaco, Coordinator of Preaching as Hospitality Formation Program, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology

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