ORATIO LV [al. LIV]. AD EAMDEM SANCTAM VIRGINEM MARIAM.
The Glory of Mary and Our Need
The soul extols Mary's surpassing glory and, confessing its own sinfulness, begs her to intercede, to heal blindness, uproot vice, and obtain eternal joy.
O nourishing Virgin Mary, you are more glorious than all the spirits of angels and than all the souls of the elect in the whole inheritance of your Son, Christ our Lord, by just so much as you deserved to be made more blessed by him. Therefore we beg you with tearful sighs: now bend the ears of your magnificent compassion toward the groaning of our grief. Since we are sinners, prone to countless offenses, we have deserved the punishment of hell — where no room for repentance is given at all — because we once promised faith to God but have lied until now by living badly. O holy Mother of God, most worthy and most pure of all creation, wipe clean the blind eyes of our hearts and show us the paths of justice. By your prayer take our vices away from us, and plant in us the seedlings of sacred virtues. Obtain for us the course of eternal joy, which the heavenly crown steadily follows as its prize.
Mary's Intercession in Mercy and Trial
The suppliant asks Mary to pray for the blotting out of sin, professes faith in her divine motherhood and its saving fruit, and begs her protection against pride in prosperity and against falling in tribulation.
So I beg you, most loving Lady, pray for us in heaven, that you may wipe away whatever we have sinned on earth. For there is nothing so small in us that prayer, if you are willing, cannot wipe it away.1 O most holy Virgin Mary, we who believe that you are the virgin and mother of God — may we come to experience, through our faith, that you intercede for us. And we who confess that you bore God and man — may we rejoice that salvation has come to us through you. And we who acknowledge that you are better than all people — may we rejoice to receive happiness through you. And whenever your divine mercy comes upon us, let your protection be there, so that we are not filled with pride.2 And if tribulation or temptation comes, let your holy prayer be present, so that we do not fall. So I beg you, merciful Lady, pour forth your prayers in heaven for our salvation, that after death we may deserve to enjoy the joys of paradise.
Mary in Scripture's Prophetic Images
Mary is hailed with scriptural titles and images—temple, court, sanctuary, branch of Jesse, cedar, rose, cypress—culminating in the mystery of fruitful virginity and the birth of Emmanuel.
O blessed mother of God, Virgin Mary, temple of the living God, court of the eternal King, sanctuary of the Holy Spirit. You are the branch from the root of Jesse, the cedar of Lebanon, the purple rose in Jericho, the cypress on Mount Zion — you who, by a singular privilege, have no equal among all creatures, and yet surpass even angelic dignity; for to you, by a new and unheard-of miracle, it was granted that the Word whom God begot before all ages should become your Son, God and man.✦ You bore him at the end of the age, so that he might be the true and perfect Son of God — twofold indeed in nature, yet one person: God and man, one Emmanuel.✦ O glorious mother, in whom alone is found fruitful virginity, who with your undefiled womb brought forth the Son of God so that the wholeness of your untainted chastity might only grow, and no desire might violate the seal of your virginal purity.
The Virginal Conception and Marian Titles
The prayer meditates on the Holy Spirit's overshadowing of Mary, Christ's priestly sacrifice taken from her flesh, and a cascade of radiant Marian titles, ending with a plea that she hear the poor and wretched.
While you were conceiving, the Holy Spirit overshadowed you — not, God forbid, in the way of ordinary seed.✦ Rather, he himself came to be in your most holy womb — not by human seed, but by the power and might of the Creator.✦ From you, our great High Priest took the victim of his own body, which he offered as a sacrifice on the altar of the cross for the salvation of the whole world.✦ You are the rising light of Nazareth.✦ You are the joy of Israel. You are the glory of the world. You are the nobility of the Christian people. O queen and lady of the world, ladder of heaven, throne of God, door of paradise — hear the prayers of the poor, and do not turn away from the groans of the wretched.✦✦
Through Mary to the Divinizing Savior
The prayer culminates by asking Mary to present our prayers to the Redeemer, to blot out sin, to cultivate virtue, and to obtain that through her we may share in the divinity of the One she bore, closing with a Trinitarian doxology.
Through you, let our prayers and sighs be brought into the presence of the Redeemer, so that we who are shut out by our own merits may through you gain a place at the ears of your compassion. Blot out our sins, remit our misdeeds, raise up those who have fallen, and free those bound in chains. Through you, let the thorns and shoots of vice be cut down, and let the flowers and ornaments of virtue come forth. By your prayers, appease the Judge, whom you bore as Savior in a childbirth beyond all others, so that he who through you was made partaker of our humanity may through you also make us partakers of his divinity. Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God through all ages of ages. Amen.
Read the original Latin
O alma virgo Maria, tanto omnibus angelorum spiritibus omnibusque electorum animabus, in cuncta filii tui Christi Domini nostri haereditate es gloriosior, quanto ab ipso fieri meruisti beatior. Obsecramus ergo te lacrymosis suspiriis, ut nunc ad gemitum nostri moeroris aures inclines magnificae pietatis. Nos siquidem peccatores proni innumerabilibus delictis infernale supplicium meruimus, ubi nullatenus poenitentiae datur locus quoniam fidem aliquando Deo promisimus, sed male vivendo hactenus mentiti sumus. O sancta Dei Genitrix, omnium creaturarum dignissima atque purissima, caecorum cordium oculos terge, atque semitas justitiae nobis ostende. Orando a nobis vitia subtrahe, atque sacrarum virtutum plantaria insere. Impetra aeterni tripudii cursum, quem assidue sequitur supernum bravium.
Sic, quaeso, piissima domina, pro nobis ora in coelis, ut deleas quidquid deliquimus in terris. Non est enim aliquid tam parvum in nobis quod oratio, si tibi placet, delere non possit. O sanctissima virgo Maria, nos qui credimus quod virgo et mater Dei sis, credendo sentiamus quod pro nobis depreceris. Et qui confitemur te peperisse Deum et hominem, gaudeamus per te nobis advenire salutem. Et qui fatemur te omnibus hominibus meliorem gaudeamus per te percipere felicitatem. Et quotiescunque processerit ad nos divina miseratio tua, ne inflemur adsit tuitio. Et si venerit tribulatio, vel tentatio ne labamur, praesens sit tua sancta oratio. Sic quaeso, domina clemens, pro salute nostra preces funde in coelis, ut paradisi post obitum frui mereamur gaudiis.
O beata Dei genitrix, virgo Maria, templum Dei vivi, aula Regis aeterni, sacrarium Spiritus sancti. Tu virga de radice Jesse, tu cedrus de Libano, tu rosa purpurea in Jericho, tu cypressus in monte Sion; quae singulari privilegio sicut nescis in omnibus comparationem, ita nihilominus et angelicam superas dignitatem, cui novo et inaudito miraculo datum est ut Verbum quod ante saecula Deus genuit, fieret filius tuus, Deus et homo. Tu eum in fine saeculi genuisti, ut verus atque perfectus esset Dei Filius gemina quidem natura, sed una persona, Deus et homo, unus Emmanuel. O gloriosa puerpera, in qua sola reperitur fecunda virginitas, quae sic intemeratis visceribus Filium Dei protulisti ut illibatae pudicitiae cresceret integritas, non libido virginalis integritatis sigillum violaret.
Tibi, dum conciperes, Spiritus sanctus obumbravit; non (quod absit!) ut ipse in tuo sanctissimo utero fieret pro semine sobolis, sed potius virtute ac potentia Creatoris. De te summus Pontifex noster sui corporis hostiam sumpsit, quam in ara crucis pro totius mundi salute sacrificium obtulit. Tu lux oriens Nazareth. Tu laetitia Israel. Tu decus mundi. Tu nobilitas populi Christiani. O regina et domina mundi, scala coeli, thronus Dei, janua paradisi, audi preces pauperum, ne despicias gemitus miserorum.
Inferantur per te vota nostra atque suspiria in conspectum Redemptoris; ut qui nostris excludimur meritis, per te locum obtineamus ad aures tuae pietatis. Dele peccata, relaxa facinora, erige lapsos, solve compeditos. Per te succidantur vepres et germina vitiorum, prodeant flores et ornamenta virtutum. Placa precibus Judicem, quem singulari puerperio genuisti Salvatorem, ut qui per te particeps factus est humanitatis nostrae, per te quoque nos consortes efficiat divinitatis suae. Qui cum Patre et Spiritu sancto vivit et regnat Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Isa.11.1 — A shoot will come forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
- ↩Isa.7.14;Matt.1.23 — Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Look, the young woman will conceive and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel. Matt.1.23 — "Look, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel," which means, "God with us."
- ↩Luke.1.35 — And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the one to be born will be called Son of God."
- ↩Luke.1.35 — And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the one to be born will be called Son of God."
- ↩Heb.7.27 — He has no need, day after day, as the high priests do, to offer sacrifices first for his own sins and then for those of the people; for he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
- ↩Luke.1.78;Isa.9.2 — because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from on high Isa.9.2 — The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in a land of deep shadow, light has shone.
- ↩Gen.28.12 — And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
- ↩John.10.9 — I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will go in and out, and will find pasture.
Notes
Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy companion
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