Mariolotry: salve regina

[Miserissima]

1. The phrase “Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope,” makes it sound like Mary (not Jesus) is our life, sweetness and hope. Several months ago, Lily_M (another poster in this forum) said that “Mercy” refers to Jesus, which means that the phrase could be restated as "Mother of Mercy (Jesus), **who is **

our life, our sweetness and our hope." This excited me, but Lily_M couldn’t provide any authoritative documentation to support this. However, I asked a visiting priest a couple of months ago, and he concurred with Lily_M’s statement. That makes me feel better, but it still sounds when you say it, though.
Oy! That made me very curious about the Hail Holy Queen prayer.

From New Advent:

The opening words [of the Salve Regina] (used as a title) of the most celebrated of the four Breviary anthems of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

While the anthem is in sonorous prose, the chant melody divides it into members which, although of unequal syllabic length, were doubtless intended to close with the faint rhythmic effect noticeable when they are set down in divided form:

Salve Regina (Mater) misericordiae,
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

New Advent goes on to share:

The composers adopt curious forms for the introduction of the text, for example (fourteenth century):
Salve splendor prœcipue / superase claritatis,
Regina vincens strenue / scelus impietatis,
Misericordia; tuœ
munus impende gratis, etc
The poem has fourteen such stanzas. Another poem, of the fifteenth century, has forty-three four-line stanzas. Another, of the fifteenth century, is more condensed:

Salve nobilis regina
fons misericordia; etc.

The last version, though I’m no Latin scholar, can be translated:
“Hail noble queen, fountain of mercy.”

Also, I found at least two Latin phrasings that have been altered to be set to music, so we know that the words have been played with quite a bit when being set to music.:
Salve Regina, mater misericordiae:
vita dulcedo, spes nostra, salve.
(Hail, queen of mercy,
[Hail] our life, our sweetness and our hope!)

andSalve Regina, Mater Misericordiae,
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, Salve!
(Hail Holy Queen, Mother of mercy
Our life, our sweetness and our hope, hail!)The monastic writers of chant were taking a literary license with the words, but the concept was altered when Latin was translated into other languages.

… the wide popularity of the Salve Regina…seems to have come into existence in the eleventh century. Though it originally began with the words “Salve Regina Misericordia” without the “Mater”, we cannot doubt that something of the vogue of the anthem was due to the immense diffusion of the collections of Mary-stories (Marien-legenden) which multiplied exceedingly at this time (twelfth to fourteenth century), and in which the Mater Misericordia motif was continually recurrent. (New Advent, Devotion to the BVM)

So the initial verse, “Salve Regina Misericordia,” means “Hail Queen of Mercy.” The original writing wasn’t “mother of our mercy, mother or our life, mother or our sweetness or mother of our hope,” as I had previously thought, since, “The word “Mater” in the first verse is found in no source, but is a late insertion of the sixteenth century. (New Advent, Salve Regina).”

 

[Miserissima]

So the original phrasing would suggest that it’s not Mater, or “mother of,” added in the sixteenth century, originally meant, “One through whom Christ has come to us.” (See her other titles in the Litany of Loreto.) It’s still a theologically sound idea:

**Hail, Holy Queen: **Queen mother of Christ the King. Special honor is due to the Queen Mother in the court before the throne, etc. (See "Biblical Theology of Mary’s Queenship.”)

**Mary, our Mercy: **Now, we know that we can call Mary by titles such as “Queen of Mercy,” it is because she is the Theotokos, or the God-bearer. Mary is the Queen Mother of Mercy by virtue of being the one who bore and carried God’s incarnate Mercy within her.

Mary, our life: one through whom our spiritual life was mad possible through her Fiat. We were spiritually dead until Mary cooperated with God’s grace to give physical life to our Redeemer.

Mary, our sweetness: This one has me stumped, actually. [My personal theory on this is that it was a clever, erudite play on her name, which meant “bitter.”] How is Mary our sweetness? I found this in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia (from Google Books, Herbermann 1913, p 410) under Salve Regina:
Luther complained that [The Salve Regina] anthem was sung everywhere throughout the world, that the great bells of the churches were rung in its honour, etc. He objected especially to the words, “Queen of mercy, our life, our sweetness, our hope”; but Daniel (Daniel Thesaurus hymnologieus, II. 32-6) points out that the language of devotion is not that of dogma, and notes that some Protestants, unwilling that it should disappear from Lutheran churches, reconstructed it “evangelically”. He perhaps refers to a version in use at Erfurt in 1525: “Salve Rex aeternae misericordiae”. The Jansenists found a little difficulty, and sought to change the expression into “the sweetness and hope of our life” (Beissel, I, 126)., the anthem thus figured largely in liturgical and in general popular Catholic devotion…
Mary, our hope: In Mary was all of our hope. Mankind waited through thousands of years of expectant hope for her “yes,” to God. Mary was our hope in that Jesus is the fulfillment of our hope, incarnate, realized, among us, sacrificed, resurrected, and ascended. Additionally, Mary remains our hope as the most powerful intercessor before her Son.

So the initial writing of the monastic writers was, it is “Through whom our life comes, through whom our sweetness comes, and through whom our hope comes.“ The “mother” idea, as in the same concept of Theotokos – is still valid although the prayer has evolved through literary license.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Did you know that Baptists commit vexillolatry (flag worship)?

I ought to know, because until I got saved and left the Baptists, I particapated in this during every Vacation Bible School.

Pieces of cloth we said prayers to were brought up with great solemnity and worshipped with ritual gestures executed in unison on the commands, “Attention. Salute. Pledge.”

Oddly enough, both prayers began with the same words, “I pledge allegiance…”

If the Salve Regina and other Marian devotions are mariolatry, then Baptists and other Protestants pray to pieces of cloth. You can’t condemn the former and approve of the latter. That’s the ABOMINATION/TOEVAH of a double standard (Proverbs 20:10).

 

[Miserissima]

If the Salve Regina and other Marian devotions are mariolatry, then Baptists and other Protestants pray to pieces of cloth. You can’t condemn the former and approve of the latter. That’s the ABOMINATION/TOEVAH of a double standard (Proverbs 20:10).

I agree with you. I’m sorry; I 'm a little confused. I’m wasn’t saying that the Salve Regina is mariolotry.

 

[Larry1700]

Mary, our Mercy:

Now, we know that we can call Mary by titles such as “Queen of Mercy,” it is because she is the Theotokos, or the God-bearer. Mary is the Queen Mother of Mercy by virtue of being the one who bore and carried God’s incarnate Mercy within her.

Mary, our life: one through whom our spiritual life was mad possible through her Fiat. We were spiritually dead until Mary cooperated with God’s grace to give physical life to our Redeemer.

[/INDENT]Mary, our hope: In Mary was all of our hope. Mankind waited through thousands of years of expectant hope for her “yes,” to God. Mary was our hope in that Jesus is the fulfillment of our hope, incarnate, realized, among us, sacrificed, resurrected, and ascended. Additionally, Mary remains our hope as the most powerful intercessor before her Son.

So the initial writing of the monastic writers was, it is “Through whom our life comes, through whom our sweetness comes, and through whom our hope comes.“ The “mother” idea, as in the same concept of Theotokos – is still valid although the prayer has evolved through literary license.

I’m sure I’ll never be able to get the Rosary re-written , but it seems to me that the wording has caused a great deal of confusion for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

I would love to see a definitive, authoritative Church document which explains the meanings of this phrase (Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope).

I was excited when the priest (who should know, but you never know for sure nowadays), confirmed Lily_M’s suggestion. However, that priest was from India, so it’s possible that there might have been a language barrier when I explained my dilemma to him.

With the information you provided (thanks), it seems it was changed a little through the centuries; therefore I now have new questions, and still no clear answer.