Introduction
This prayer –
entitled, “Hail Holy Queen”, or (in Latin) “Salve Regina” – is the last prayer
one says as one completes the Rosary.
Until I was in my 60’s and recovering from leukemia I found this to be a
doleful prayer, at best. I felt trapped
by the sense that the prayer was asking us to hold on, in spite of the great
sorrows in our lives, until death – when we would be freed from our exile and
become happy in heaven. During my bout
with leukemia I experienced unexpected Peace and Joy. I was given the Grace to see God’s promises
in Christ as promises that could and did (for me) become true during life. My exile ended when I was given the Grace to
see God’s love as omnipresent and sufficient – in spite of the circumstances
within which one found one’s self.
I have a
friend who is depressed and made what appeared to be a suicide attempt. Thankfully, it failed. In my prayer time I was praying for her. This prayer came to my mind. I knew she was a devotee – finding comfort in
her relationship with Mary. It seemed to
me, in my prayer time, that I should translate this prayer according to my new
understanding, and share it with her.
That is what I did. It moved her.
I hope it moves you – to reconsider the unfortunate
interpretations of this mighty prayer.
We are promised freedom from the tyranny of our life’s troubles. We are promised joy. We pray to Mary to help us experience this Joy…
through her son, Jesus Christ.
"Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy"…
Mary is the mother of Jesus. In the
Gospel of John, John tells us, "1In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2
He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things
were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 14 The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory
of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth"
[John 1:1-3; 14].
Therefore, as
the mother of God, Mary has a rather interesting role to play in all of
creation. She is not God; yet, somehow, without her the word of God would not
have become flesh. So we would not have known God's Mercy in Christ without Mary’s
role in the birth of Jesus. Mary is the
vehicle through which the son of God became man. She is the human Mother of God made
human! She is the “Mother of Mercy.”
"Our life, our sweetness, and our
hope"…
Is the author
of this prayer telling us that Mary is our life, our sweetness, and our hope?
Or is the author once again telling us that Mary is the mother of our life our
sweetness and our hope? I choose to believe that it is the later. However, either way, it is through her that
we were able to see the incarnation of our life, our sweetness, and our hope in
the person of Jesus the Christ.
“To Thee do we cry, poor banished children
of Eve”…
This line has
puzzled me since I was a small child. What does this line say about our lives?
Clearly, it suggests that there is an underlying pool of abandonment that we
experience while here on earth. There may even be a hint of extreme punishment
in this phrase. We are not only abandoned. We are banished. Furthermore, we seem not to be banished by our own deeds
but by the deeds of our ancestral Mother, Eve.
There's a place in my heart where I scream to God, “Why am I punished
for the acts of my ancestral mother?”
However,
that's not how I see it anymore. We who
are human have inherited what's known as "human nature." Sometimes
our human nature is applauded as the seat of our humanity and all the goodness
of which we are part. More often, however, we apologize for our human
nature. This nature drives us – in
conscious and unconscious ways – to have our deepest desires fulfilled
(frequently, in spite of the negative consequences meeting these needs cause
ourselves and others).
We lament our
sins and our faithlessness. We want to
be ‘good’ and we find it virtually impossible to make good on the thousands of
reformations we’ve attempted. We are not
punished because of Eve's deeds. Indeed, we are not being punished at all. Our selfish
and unloving choices seem to separate us from our very knowledge of God’s Love
that would free us from our sense of abandonment. When I act in a way unworthy
of a child of God, I tend to turn from God's Love because I do not
feel ‘entitled’ of the love of the author of goodness. And so our banishment is
a function of our sinful choices; of our refusal to turn to God’s Love, and of our
fearful drives that help us stay alive – but alienated – from the Love of God.
“To Thee do we send up our sighs; mourning
and weeping in this valley of tears”…
This phrase
often brings me to my knees. Have you ever mourned for seemingly no other
reason than because you were alive? Have you ever wept with the grief that did
not seem consolable? You look around at
the grief and suffering in the world and you feel it crowd your very soul into
oblivion! Where is God in this? Why are we weeping? Why is this earth seemingly a valley of
tears? What happened to the promises of
Peace and Joy? If this phrase tells us
nothing else, it tells us that at times (and sometimes for great and seemingly
unending periods of time) life is painful and difficult… almost to the point of
hopelessness. Fortunately, this prayer
does not end at this stanza…
“Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine
eyes of mercy toward us”…
Mother! Mother!
Please help, Mother!
“…and after this our exile…”
What does this mean? We are doomed to a life of mourning and
weeping until we die? Then and only then
are we able to be shown the blessedness of God?
This is not what I believe this prayer means. There is clearly a period of time in our
lives that the Bible refers to as youthfulness and foolishness (Proverbs 22:15;
Ecclesiastes 9:3). There is also a time
of repentance (Matthew 3:2, 4:17; Mark 1:4, 1:15. 6:12; Luke 3:3) – the turning
away from those pursuits that bring us as much grief as happiness in life. There is a time of redemption – when we are
afforded the Grace of God… and that time is NOW!
“… show unto us the blessed fruit of thy
womb, Jesus.”
It is here
that we see the blessed truths of Jesus – God incarnate; the living Word…
“Oh clement, oh loving, oh sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us, Oh Holy
Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”
To be “worthy”
is to be repentant; truly sorry for one’s failures – particularly one’s
repeated failures; and make a determined effort to surrender inappropriate
behaviors that fail to bring to ourselves and others the love we truly seek to
give and receive. It does not mean to be
‘perfect.’ It means to be conscious of
the unhappy consequences of our poor choices; and to ask for God’s help in
overcoming these regular failures.
… And so, we beseech our Mother in
God – the Mother of God – to open our deeper nature… the nature of our hearts…
the hearts that long for our communion with God our Father and Mother. That is the promise of Christ… that we will
see His Love and Grace… that we will experience this Love and Grace… and we will know by this Love and Grace that we are not abandoned,
alone, or banished (John 14:26; 15:11).
In fact, it is joy that we are
promised as children of God… “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).
So, I close with a slightly modified
ending to this prayer…
Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may experience this great and
unending promise of your son, our Christ, Jesus.
I've actually always loved this prayer, but you made me see it in a different light. It's something I've been saying since I was a child, and I had made up my own ideas about it (not to mention that I thought "mourning and weeping" was "morning and evening" until I was Confirmed).
ReplyDeleteI liked how you mentioned that, as a child, you struggled with the idea of being punished for Adam and Eve's sin. I, too, struggled with that as a child, and to some extent I still do. But I am, as C. S. Lewis would say, a Daughter of Eve, and what's important is that I focus on God and His mercy and love, and not the sins of my ancestors.
This is an extremely thought-provoking piece. Thank you for sharing. You've given me a lot to think and to pray about!