Hail, Holy Queen (Salve Regina)
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
At the End of the Rosary
Let us pray. O God, whose only-begotten Son, by His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, grant, we beseech Thee, that meditating upon these mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
As a Marian Antiphon
Prayed at the end of Night Prayer from the Monday after Pentecost until Advent.
Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, who by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin Mother Mary to become a worthy dwelling for Thy Son, grant that we who rejoice in her commemoration may by her loving intercession be delivered from present evils and from everlasting death. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Where Does This Prayer Come From?
The Salve Regina is about a thousand years old.
Who wrote it?
Honestly, we're not sure.
Tradition credits a German monk, Hermann of Reichenau.
He was born with a severe disability.
He could hardly move or speak.
He died in 1054.
But scholars now question that.
Other names have been suggested too.
A bishop of Compostela.
A bishop of Le Puy.
We may never know who wrote it, but we know who has sung it.
Around 1135, the monks of Cluny sang it in procession on feast days.
By the mid-1100s, the Cistercians had it.
Around 1221, the Dominicans began singing it at the end of Compline, the Church's night prayer.
Monks and friars ending the day the same way.
Century after century.
In 1884, Pope Leo XIII added it to the prayers after every Low Mass.
The same prayers that would soon include the St. Michael Prayer.
Today, most Catholics know it as the prayer that ends the Rosary.
You may have heard that St. Bernard of Clairvaux added the last line on the spot, "O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary."
That story first shows up about four hundred years after Bernard.
It's lovely.
It's also doubtful.
Now look at the words.
"Poor banished children of Eve."
And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken.
— Genesis 3:23
That's us. Still outside the garden.
Then the last request:
"Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
Wait.
That's Elizabeth's line.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
— Luke 1:42
You may see Marian prayer differently.
But you at least have to admit what this prayer asks for in the end.
Not Mary.
Jesus.
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