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Una Voce is the magazine of Una Voce France
Here we republish reflections on three popular prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Prayers of the Virgin Mary
1. Sub Tuum Praesidium
Sub tuum præsidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genitrix, nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.
This prayer was from the third to the twentieth centuries the most important Marian prayer (in its complete form, the Ave Maria we recite today dates only from the sixteenth century). A notable modern use of it is recorded in the war diary of Fr Jean Dervilly (serving at this date as a sergeant in the 47th Infantry Regiment of Saint-Malo). He wrote, on the terrible day of 22nd August 1914: ‘During my service I had already heard the more or less high-pitched whistling of bullets. But everyone is rendered emotional by the special whistling sound of the shells when they come close to the point of arrival. Whenever I hear it, I quickly make the sign of the cross and I say the words Sub tuum praesidium, falling flat on my stomach or clinging to the foot of a tree’.
Fr Dervilly could not have known at the time of writing that this invocation had been used by the Christians of the fourth century in Rome, and, before then, was a prayer of the Eastern Churches from the third century, as revealed by a papyrus discovered in Egypt in the very same year, 1917 (this document is now in Manchester, England). This is the Greek text in Latin script:
Hupo tên sên eusplagchnian katapheugomen Theotoke. Tas hêmôn hikesias mê paridêis en peristasei all’ek kindunôn lutrôsai hêmas, monê Agnê, monê Eulogêmenê.
The Sub Tuum is therefore a translation, which explains a few awkward points of the text. Praesidium, ‘guard, protection’, is weaker than the Greek eusplagchnia, which evokes both bowels and mercy. Virgo gloriosa is more vague than Monê agnê, ‘alone pure’. Is the comma between semper and Virgo well placed? The text already expresses the Catholic faith in Mary, Mother of God, including the Immaculate Conception. (Benoît Le Roux)
2. Salve, Sancta Parens
Salve, sancta parens, enixa puerpera Regem, qui cælum terramque regit in sæcula sæculorum. (Ps 44: 2) Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum: dico ego opera mea Regi.
Hail, Holy Mother, who in childbirth brought forth the King Who rules Heaven and earth, forever and ever. (Ps 44: 2) My heart hath uttered a good word; I speak my works to the King.
This is the Introit of Marian Masses in the Ancient Rite, such as the Nativity of the Virgin (8th September); in the Novus Ordo it is the Introit of the Feast of the Mother of God (1st January). The words are also the Word, the Word of God Himself. The verse of the psalm is carried by the Virgin Mary. This chant is set to several Corsican polyphonic settings. (Jean-Louis Benoit)
3. Ave Regina Cælorum
Ave, Regina cælorum, Ave, Domina Angelorum Salve Radix, salve Porta, Ex qua mundo Lux est orta.
Gaude, Virgo gloriosa Super omnes speciosa. Vale, o valde decora, Et pro nobis Christum exora.
Hail, O Queen of Heav’n enthron’d, Hail, by angels Mistress own’d Root of Jesse, Gate of morn, Whence the world’s true light was born.
Glorious Virgin, joy to thee, Loveliest whom in Heaven they see, Fairest thou where all are fair! Plead with Christ our sins to spare.
A little iambic poem in two stanzas, which are quatrains, either eight octosyllabic verses, with very rich rhymes. This taste for rhymes suggests that it was composed in the time of St Bernard, to whom this text has been attributed, though without direct proof. A monastic origin does seem plausible, from the twelfth or thirteenth century, leaving many possibilities open! It is sung as an antiphon at the end of Compline, thus at the end of the daily Office, from 2nd February to Holy Wednesday (then the Regina Caeli is sung until Trinity Sunday, then the Alma Redemptoris Mater ). It was Pope Clement VI who is said to have introduced it into the breviary. As with the other Marian antiphons that occupy this position according to the liturgical season, there is then a verse and a collect, and the Office is completed. Someone said of this poem that it was a madrigal, which seems fitting. (Dom François Larroque, Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontgombault)
