I have a theological problem with "Salve Regina"

[OraLabora]

Before the rosary was said in the same way as now, the SR was a hymn that was used in the Little Office, which was very much like the breviary, or Liturgy of the Hours that priests and nuns recite, but shorter. The hymn was surrounded by psalms, most of which the Christian understands as relating, or prophysying Our Lord. If you spend 15 minutes praying the psalms, which are directed toward Christ, you are not likely to misunderstand the proper understanding of the words in the SR - the context was much more clear.

All that remains in common useage today is the SR. Placed next to the other prayers, it can seem “over the top.” But placed in its original context, it regains its proper focus.

Well actually the Salve Regina is still used in the Liturgy of the Hours as a final Marian antiphon at the end of Compline. In the Roman Church, it is used from the day after Pentecost until the Friday just before Advent; the Cistercians use it all through the year after Compline, and the Benedictines follow the Roman Church practice, with a solemn version on feasts, solemnities and Sundays.

 

[Della]

Cristiano, Della, and Warrenton: thank you very much for your quick replies. It’s amazing to see the intense and zealous devotion so many of you have for the Blessed Virgin. Your beloved wish to set your fellow human being’s conscience at ease is laudable.

It is obvious that our lady is the kindest of all women, and the most graceful of any mother ever given a child. I thank her for this humility daily, and always ask for her (very meritorious!) prayers to God; however, even in poetry I can only ‘tolerate’ (as if I’m so special ) so much metaphor and indirectness. I think that, logically, such prayers ought to be direct and understandable by the most ignorant layman (me). If it must be explained by metaphors and inadvertent references to God, it is too convoluted, isn’t it? We must judge our deepest prayers by how many people understand them at face value, and are moved to glorify God directly, simply, and lovingly.

After all, when a letter is delivered to you, do you write your reply to the letter-courier, or the person who wrote the letter? The courier does indeed bring you good news in a letter from family or friends, but you address yourself to the family and friends who wrote it, not the man who led you to your family and friends by giving you the letter. I don’t think this allegory is too secular to be applied to Mary, because she is supremely real and alive in Heaven with all the saints… even more alive than the postman, you might say!

Sorry if I seem to be nitpicking, but I am very scrupulous about avoiding prayers that can be misunderstood easily at face value. An individual prayer must stand on its own, regardless of the context around it, right? It seems to me that a prayer isn’t clear enough if it loses its true meaning because the prayers which used to come before and after it are gone. If you’re supposed to pray A, B, and C, and then you lose A and C, B should still be able to stand by itself. Think of all the simple lay people and not-theologically-oriented brothers and sisters who are led to an unjustified concept of the Blessed Virgin by such poetical veneration!

All my questions are asked in calm mind and with love.

You are laboring under a gross misconception here–the idea that everything should be clear to the average layman on the face of things. That is not always the case.

Catholicism consists of both reason and faith. We’ve given you reason, and good reason, too, I must add. But, there are many things of faith we simply cannot grasp with our reason alone. Take the Holy Trinity, for example. Can we explain the concept? Yes. Can we put it into reasonable terms? Yes. Can we fully understand it or know what it means at face value? No. It’s a mystery of God.

One of the paradoxes of the Faith is that it has both transparent and “cloudy” (for lack of a better word) aspects to it. We believe in a host of things that on the surface seem impossible, such as the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, the Resurrection from the Dead, the Communion of Saints, etc. None of these is the kind of idea one would just come up with on one’s own. They are all mysteries, but not unreasonable when explained.

You have lived your whole life in a society in which many of these concepts are taken for granted, but if you hadn’t, if you’d been brought up a Hindu or Muslim, they’d seem very odd to you. There’s nothing theologically unsound about the Salve Regina. It’s just that it isn’t familiar to your “ears” and written in the kind of language you don’t use every day. That doesn’t make it questionable, only a bit obscure, and there is nothing odd about any of the mysteries of the Faith being a bit obscure considering they are all acts of God and not of mere man.

 

[Warrenton]

even in poetry I can only ‘tolerate’ (as if I’m so special ) so much metaphor and indirectness. I think that, logically, such prayers ought to be direct and understandable by the most ignorant layman (me). If it must be explained by metaphors and inadvertent references to God, it is too convoluted, isn’t it? We must judge our deepest prayers by how many people understand them at face value, and are moved to glorify God directly, simply, and lovingly.

After all, when a letter is delivered to you, do you write your reply to the letter-courier, or the person who wrote the letter? The courier does indeed bring you good news in a letter from family or friends, but you address yourself to the family and friends who wrote it, not the man who led you to your family and friends by giving you the letter. I don’t think this allegory is too secular to be applied to Mary, because she is supremely real and alive in Heaven with all the saints… even more alive than the postman, you might say!

If you’re supposed to pray A, B, and C, and then you lose A and C, B should still be able to stand by itself. Think of all the simple lay people and not-theologically-oriented brothers and sisters who are led to an unjustified concept of the Blessed Virgin by such poetical veneration!

All my questions are asked in calm mind and with love.

Your reply brings up many excellent points.

First, remember that within the Church, there is great freedom to pray. If you prefer to pray to Christ directly, then you are free to do so. No Catholic can critisize you for that.

Step back a moment, though, and recall that the Church (in the RC understanding) is composed of all its members, living and dead. Compared to earlier Catholics, you are among the most sophisticated. Moreover, your faith is challenged by the versions of Christianity that have attempted a “minimalist” approach. Earlier Catholics did not have to compare their beliefs against any one else’s. In that sense, they were more free to express themselves poetically, as you put it.

Also remember that earlier Catholics lived in a world that presented much more opportunity for structured prayer. They prayed psalms in the morning, the angelus in the afternoon, vespers (more psalms) at night, and structured prayers on Sunday. In a way, we live in the wreckage of that totally Christian culture, and we try to hold what remains. Their perspective was better.

While there may be some risk to viewing the Blessed Virgin as a virtual goddess, the greater risk is that minimalist Christianity disolves into a vague pantheism, or agnosticism.
The nordic countries are a good example of the ultimate tendencies of Calvinism, and their state churches were not even orginally reformed on Calvinist lines!

To resolve the scruples you have, begin by meditating on the amount of holiness the Blessed Virgin must have had to be worthy of carrying the incarnate body of our Lord. Compare that with Isiah’s reluctance even to preach the word of God because of the pollution of his words (“I am a man of unclean lips”). The angel had to cauterize him.

Holiness is a hard concept to grasp in the times we live in, where nothing we see is treated as holy. That is why we need to “go back to the well” of the Old Testament, and re-acquaint ourselves with that idea.

Once we appreciate the idea of the “otherness” of God, in the context of His holiness, then the meaning of the Blessed Virgin comes more clearly into view.

 

[Warrenton]

This is grammatically impossible, for those who know Latin. "

You are just too cool

 

[GloriousOrder]

To resolve the scruples you have, begin by meditating on the amount of holiness the Blessed Virgin must have had to be worthy of carrying the incarnate body of our Lord.

Friend, immediately upon reading this I understood. A shiver of Divine Love, echoing from the distance of eternity, shot through my spine when I considered this. Something far beyond my ability to sense has entered my mind. This thread has served its purpose!

 

[Warrenton]

Well actually the Salve Regina is still used in the Liturgy of the Hours as a final Marian antiphon at the end of Compline. In the Roman Church, it is used from the day after Pentecost until the Friday just before Advent; the Cistercians use it all through the year after Compline, and the Benedictines follow the Roman Church practice, with a solemn version on feasts, solemnities and Sundays.

I meant in common useage. I wager far fewer lay people (by percentage) pray hours than in the middle ages, or even through the turn of the last century. Of course, the lay brothers and sisters who would have prayed it on the Cistercian estates are gone.

 

[Warrenton]

This thread has served its purpose!

 

[MikeDunphy]

… and not, “Mother of {mercy, life, sweetness, hope}.” If that were the case, the Latin would have had to say, “Mater misericordiae, vitae, dulcedinis, et spei nostrae, salve.”

Would this parsing be grammatical and plausible?
{Mother of mercy, life, sweetness, hope} our

 

[MarkThompson]

Would this parsing be grammatical and plausible?
{Mother of mercy, life, sweetness, hope} our

Yes. I went back and typed the “our” into my bullet list at the end, and realized afterward that I didn’t parse it quite as I should have. It is impossible to tell grammatically whether the “nostra” modifies only “spes” or the entire list, but I certainly agree that in context it’s most reasonable to see it in the latter way.

Thanks for catching that.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

My daughter is four years old and already she can recite the entire Hail Holy Queen prayer at bed time. She also knows the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Fatima Prayer, etc.

 

[Della]

I meant in common useage. I wager far fewer lay people (by percentage) pray hours than in the middle ages, or even through the turn of the last century. Of course, the lay brothers and sisters who would have prayed it on the Cistercian estates are gone.

I pray Morning and Evening Prayer daily and so do many others. It’s far from a dead practice amongst lay Catholics. And even more pray the rosary which ends with the Salve Regina. So, it is prayed a lot more than I think you are aware of or give modern Catholics credit for.

St. Louis Marie de Montfort gave an excellent explanation of this prayer as did St. Alphonsus de Liguori. Not that their explanations are for “milk” Christians. The prayer deals with deeper matters of the Faith, which is why our Protestant brethren have such a hard time with it. They don’t have the theological background to understand it. And sadly, trying to explain it to those without such a background, who aren’t ready to receive it can be like “casting pearls before swine” in that they often get upset and/or accusatory instead of understanding what this prayer is really saying.

 

[Warrenton]

I pray Morning and Evening Prayer daily and so do many others. It’s far from a dead practice amongst lay Catholics. And even more pray the rosary which ends with the Salve Regina. So, it is prayed a lot more than I think you are aware of or give modern Catholics credit for.

Don’t misunderstand me. I think many recite their hours, even the Little Hours. But prior to the turn of the 20th Century, many places celebrated vespers and matins in Church, much as the Anglican community and the Orthodox still do. Common practice in the RCC has supplanted this with daily mass, which is not bad, just a different emphasis.

The way third order Catholics live has changed a lot over the past century plus, also. Formerly, they were closer to their full clerical brethren - that is why St. Martin de Porres wore a habit.

But I do lament that the organizational aspects of earlier times are not as strong as formerly. The sequestering of religion into Sunday morning that began with protestantism, has become a function of the compartmentalizing tendency of modern life. It has resulted in less formal, group prayer, and has been accompanied by the shift in emphasis we discussed. Personally, I think the shift was more an accomodation to necessity than a preference.

On the other hand, I do think our Marian devotions are hard for our Protestanr friends to assimilate. Unless they come into the faith with a person like yourself, they are apt to see these devotions out of context, which would be alarming.

 

[GloriousOrder]

Just for your information Warrenton, I prayed my first full rosary for half an hour this afternoon. I had been avoiding it because of my fear of the final prayer. When I arrived at length to the Salve, Regina, I mentally pronounced the words “mother of” with a stronger accent than the things coming after, to emphasise my belief that she is a creature. When really emphasised in my soul, in prayer before the guiding hand of Mary, it seemed much more peaceful than worrying!

Oddly enough, I had a queer sense of the colour white when meditating on this last prayer, but ‘inside my spirit’, so to speak. It was akin to the key E major, full-moonlight on a calm river, or perhaps floodlights in a dark place. When praying the last words: “O clemens, o pia … Virgo Maria!”, it was as if my entire mind was filled with his peaceful “whiteness”. It sounds rather silly, doesn’t it?

 

[Warrenton]

". It sounds rather silly, doesn’t it?

Not a bit! I’m going to pray a rosary later today, and will be sure to add you in my prayers like we were together

 

[pablope]

Just for your information Warrenton, I prayed my first full rosary for half an hour this afternoon. I had been avoiding it because of my fear of the final prayer. When I arrived at length to the Salve, Regina, I mentally pronounced the words “mother of” with a stronger accent than the things coming after, to emphasise my belief that she is a creature. When really emphasised in my soul, in prayer before the guiding hand of Mary, it seemed much more peaceful than worrying!

Oddly enough, I had a queer sense of the colour white when meditating on this last prayer, but ‘inside my spirit’, so to speak. It was akin to the key E major, full-moonlight on a calm river, or perhaps floodlights in a dark place. When praying the last words: “O clemens, o pia … Virgo Maria!”, it was as if my entire mind was filled with his peaceful “whiteness”. It sounds rather silly, doesn’t it?

Not at all…that is Mary’s enveloping love for you…in my humble sense…I prayed a very contemplative rosary (in an adoration chapel) about two weeks ago due to an illness in my family…i felt so much at peace…then suddenly, out of the blue, someone in the pew behind me approached me and asked if I needed prayers, I told her not me but my son…and she offered her prayers without even asking for my son’s name.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Great point! But on the other hand, have you noticed how Protestants have almost lamented their drastic departures from Catholicism and, in recent years, have co-opted several facets of Catholicism and have actually sought to be more Catholic?

I can only speak anecdotally, but in my area, all the Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and other mainline Protestants as well as the Pentecostals and their crew all had Easter Sunday and that was IT. Since the “Passion of the Christ” came out, they ALL have Good Friday now. Then they even added “Maundy Thursday.” Now I know Maundy Thursday and Good Friday were always a part of Anglican churches, etc. but in my area most mainline Protestant churches didn’t celebrate them. I only speak for my area, as I said. Then all of a sudden I saw these non-denominational churches having “stations of the Cross!” And a lot of them anoint with oil and try to do exorcisms, etc.

And it just always seems to me that “dedicating” a baby is like a half-hearted attempt to baptize. It’s almost as if those extreme Protestants that threw out the baby with the bath water and quit baptizing infants, regret it to some degree and try to make up for it with a “dedication” ceremony (even though I know they don’t consider it baptism).

So for all the sequestering, there’s a lot of emulation and moving toward a Catholic model in some areas. Interesting to think about at least…

The sequestering of religion into Sunday morning that began with protestantism, has become a function of the compartmentalizing tendency of modern life. It has resulted in less formal, group prayer, and has been accompanied by the shift in emphasis we discussed. Personally, I think the shift was more an accomodation to necessity than a preference. .

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Traditionally we Carmelites end every prayer hour and Mass with a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Usually it is the Hail Mary but sometimes it is the Salve Regina or the Flos Carmeli.

During Advent and Lent we will use the other proscribed prayers. Depending on who the leader is.

 

[Warrenton]

Instaurare omnia in Christo!!!

 

[OraLabora]

I meant in common useage. I wager far fewer lay people (by percentage) pray hours than in the middle ages, or even through the turn of the last century. Of course, the lay brothers and sisters who would have prayed it on the Cistercian estates are gone.

I think it’s the other way around. The Divine Office historically has been the purview of ordained clergy. Even in monasteries, only the choir monks would pray the full divine office. Until Vatican II, the lay brothers would usually pray some sort of simplified office, until eventually they did away with the distinction between choir monks and lay brothers.

In parishes, before Vatican II there would be Vespers at least on occasion on Sundays or major feasts. And these offices, the antiphons, the collects, the hymns and the psalms and canticles, would have been entirely in Latin, which is quite a bit harder than just learning the relatively limited Latin in the Mass. Lastly, the sheer weight of the Divine Office in those days (with, at minimum the entire psalter in a week, and in the Monastic form, about 250 psalms per week…obviously with much repetition).

It really wasn’t until the current Liturgy of the Hours was promulgated (and in the vernacular) that the Divine Office really became within the reasonable reach of lay faithful as a daily devotion.

With the number of Benedictine Oblates continually growing, and with the Oblate’s obligation to recite at least a part of the Divine Office, I think we’ll see the numbers grow with time

 

[mangy_dog]

Friends, it’s the second-most-famous Marian prayer in use, after the Ave. It’s more traditional than Friday fish and altar rails! We all know it if we’ve prayed even one full rosary. It is very beautiful, but its meaning seems to be confusing.

I’ve just learned it myself, and it is giving my conscience big problems. How can I call the Blessed Virgin “our life” and “our hope”? Are we not to hope solely in God, from whom all things emanate? The Blessed Lord is our hope, for He Is and we are not; even Mary, the greatest servant of God, is as the blades of grass. How can we hope in something that can pass away like flower petals in the wind, too? Your hope is in that which lasts forever. Similarly, Christ tells us every day - by His Holy Spirit and the love of the Cross - that He alone is “The Life”, the life without which we are empty.

Why is the Virgin referred to in this way? I wouldn’t mind if it was just an unofficial prayer, but this is the official form of the rosary. God forbid me from attacking His holy Church, but where is the glory due to God in this prayer? Jesus sounds almost like an afterthought, while we call Mary “our” hope and “our” life!

Remember that Mary’s virtues are in light of Jesus’ virtues. We are taking nothing from Jesus by way of this prayer to His Mother.

Mary is our hope because she is the sign of “these times”, commissioned by God Himself to be our life our hope and to bring (as the prayer clearly indicates) Jesus to us - et Iesum, benedictum, fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende…

There is nothing in this prayer that would detract from the will of God or His Son Jesus Christ.

To think that this prayer detracts from the importance we owe to Jesus is tantamount to saying that Jesus rejected His mother when told that his mother and relative were outside waiting for Him].

In this passage Jesus does not reject His mother but exalts her as the prime example of those who listen to His message and keep it and how we should be like her.

God truly forbid you from falling into the snare of talking ill about His Mother because…to talk about the Virgin Mary is to talk about the Church and to talk about the church is to talk about the Virgin Mary. Both are united in one vocatoin…Divine Maternity.