In certain Catholic countries, especially in Mexico, Guatemala, Italy, Peru, Brazil, Luxembourg, Spain, Malta, and the Philippines, it is the beginning of the Holy Week celebrations and termed as Viernes de Dolores (Friday of Sorrows).

It takes place exactly one week before Good Friday, and concentrates on the emotional pain that the Passion of Jesus Christ caused to his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is venerated under the title Our Lady of Sorrows.

[3] Each of the two celebrations had been called a feast of "The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (Latin: Septem Dolorum Beatae Mariae Virginis) and included recitation of the Stabat Mater as a sequence.

In 2015 Divine Worship: The Missal for Anglican Use Catholics restored the observance on the Friday in Passion Week, and provided propers including the Introit Stabant iuxta crucem (Jn 19:25; Ps 56:1), and a modified form of the 1962 Collect: O LORD in whose Passion, according to the prophecy of Simeon, the sword of sorrow did pierce the most loving soul of thy glorious Virgin Mother Mary: mercifully grant that we, who devoutly call to mind the suffering whereby she was pierced, may, by the glorious merits and prayers of all the Saints who have stood beneath the Cross, obtain with gladness the benefits of thy Passion; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum authorizes, under certain conditions, continued use of the 1962 Roman Missal, which contains the feast of the Friday of the fifth week of Lent.

Celebration of Friday of Sorrows in Malta, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala and the Philippines includes processions, public penance, mournful singing and the mortification of the flesh.

This marks the beginning of the days-long, uninterrupted Pabasa (“reading”), the rite of chanting the Pasiong Mahal, a vernacular epic text centred on the Passion of Christ.