After Pope Alexander IV formally established the Servite Order in 1255, lay men and women formed a confraternity in honour of the seven sorrows of Mary and wore a black scapular, usually bearing an image of Our Lady of Sorrows, as the sign of their membership. It is one of the five best-known small scapulars approved by the Church. Wearing it is a private devotion and an act of membership in a confraternity; it is not part of the Church's liturgy, and it carries no promise beyond what its cited sources report.

Be enrolled by a priest who has the faculty to invest in this scapular, and afterwards wear it constantly over the shoulders, under your clothing. Keep the sorrows of Mary in mind through the day — Simeon's prophecy, the flight into Egypt, the loss of the Child in the Temple, the meeting on the way to Calvary, the Crucifixion, the taking down from the Cross, and the burial — pausing at each with a Hail Mary, and stand with her beside the suffering of the people around you.

Citation

Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, 4th ed. (Apostolic Penitentiary, 1999), grant on the use of articles of devotion: a partial indulgence for the devout use of a crucifix, rosary, scapular or medal properly blessed by a priest. The governing norms are those of Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967).

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