Sacred Scripture first alludes to Our lady of Sorrows in Luke 2:35, where the prophet Simeon meets baby Jesus with Mary for the first time, and states a "sword will pierce thy own heart."
Sacred Tradition as revealed through the life of the Mystics reveals that Mary's sorrows began before her conception of Christ. She like modern women suffered heartbreak, anxiety, abandonment, trauma. Thus, Our Lady of Sorrows, in addition to the dolor she suffered following her son's nativity, knows intimately the pains of girlhood and womanhood. Our Lady of Sorrows is thus that friend, upon whom we can call and who without judgment and without encouraging our transgressions, consoles us back to life and make us whole again.
Our Lady of Sorrows is also called Our Lady of Kibeho because Kibeho, Rwanda is the location of Mary's apparition in 1981 to children, forewarning of the impeding genocide if hate did not cease; sadly the genocide in Rwanda occurred.
This portrait of our Lady of Kibeho is painted with Mary unveiled to represent her vulnerability and solidarity with the modern woman. In early Judeo-Christian times women who wore their hair unveiled were considered shameful. Often our most sorrowful moments are marked with immense vulnerability, recluse, where we forget about societal expectations and feel most unseen.