The "Hail, Holy Queen" prayer. Need thoughts please

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Is anyone else uncomfortable with the the phrase “Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope.”?

I am. For starters, I live for God/Jesus not Mary. To say Mary is my life is an affront to God and Christ and their Primacy.

I could live with the sweetness though, and see nothing wrong with this word to describe her.

The next words bother me though. Mary isn’t my hope, Christ is, because ultimately is through Him that I get to God.

Can anyone explain this to me in a better way perhaps because that is how I see it.

I pray the Rosary. I love Mary, she is my mother, she does intercede for me and I’m very appreciative for that but to say these things about her, I feel that it elevates her above God. I ommit this when I say the prayer.
 
Mother of MERCY
Mother of LIFE
Mother of Our Sweetness.

Its pretty easy to see your misunderstanding if you don’t see that Jesus is the fount of Mercy, Life, and Sweetness. Mary is His true Mother, therefore that makes her the Mother of all these things.

Plus, She gave birth to all of us at the foot of the Cross so in another mystical sense, she is the Mother of Life.
 
"Hail Holy Queen, mother of mercy, (and also mother of) our life, our sweetness, and our hope…

That’s how I’ve always read it. If it’s not, then it’s just poetic language used to show devotion. Like telling someone you love “You’re my world”. They aren’t really, and you’re just using hyperbole to show them how much you care. Christ is not offended at telling someone that they are your world. Same with the Hail Holy Queen.
 
If one can call his wife, her husband, his girlfriend, her boyfriend, his son or daughter that "You are my life! you are my soul! You are my apple pine, pumpkin pie, honey, etc … " 😃 , then “Our life, our sweetness, and our hope” can refer to not only Christ but also Virgin Mary.

Yes, Christ is the ultimate end.
For Mary, She is also our life for She is Our Mother. She gives us Her tenderly love that no one, besides God, can. She is our hope, our intercessor.
 
Fox said:
The next words bother me though. Mary isn’t my hope, Christ is, because ultimately is through Him that I get to God.
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In a real sense, she is humanity’s hope . . . As the new Eve, she was taken up into Heaven, Body and Soul, as we all hope to be at the day of Resurrection, in the power of her most holy Son.
 
Fox said:
Is anyone else uncomfortable with the the phrase “Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope.”?
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Actually, it comforts me.🙂
Code: 
                            Magnificat
My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the humility of His handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is His Name. And His Mercy is from generation unto generations upon them that fear Him.

He hath shewed might in His arm, He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel, His servant, being mindful of His mercy. As He spoke to our Fathers, Abraham and His seed forever.
 
Fox said:
Is anyone else uncomfortable with the the phrase “Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope.”?

I
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look at the grammar of the full construction
Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. the construction properly labels her for what she is, Mother of Mercy, that is, Mother of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, who is Mercy, and who is our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope. The reference IS to Jesus, not to her.
 
Don’t forget. All Mary has ever done is to point us to her son. Her only message through the ages is a repete of what she told the servants at Cana, “Do whatever he tells you to do.”.

Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B
 
And she is Queen as the Queen-Mother. Her Son is King of Heaven and Earth. See King Solomon’s reverence for his mother in Kings.

So Hail Holy Queen is a title which points to Jesus.
 
Jesus is our life, our sweetness, and our hope. This is what the prayer states.

“Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope.”

The Blessed Mother is not our life, or our sweetness, or our hope. She is the Mother of Our Sweetness, Our Life, and Our Hope.

Like most Marian devotions and prayers, this one has Christ at it’s very centre and heart.
 
Honestly, I’m not really big on any of the Marian prayers/devotion.

But then, I was raised in a huge Catholic family where my grandmother was far more fond of pounding home the message of Fatima than that of Jerusalem. Christ was oten treated as the odd man out, whose primary claim to fame was that he was Mary’s son.

Small wonder that of my 60 odd first cousins, there’s only a small handful that are still active Catholics…

But no one makes recite any marian prayers you are uncomfortable with. Don’t let some people’s poetic extravagance trouble you.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
Honestly, I’m not really big on any of the Marian prayers/devotion.

But then, I was raised in a huge Catholic family where my grandmother was far more fond of pounding home the message of Fatima than that of Jerusalem. Christ was oten treated as the odd man out, whose primary claim to fame was that he was Mary’s son.

Small wonder that of my 60 odd first cousins, there’s only a small handful that are still active Catholics…

But no one makes recite any marian prayers you are uncomfortable with. Don’t let some people’s poetic extravagance trouble you.
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Then your “huge Catholic family” was not Catholic in Spirit and Truth buddy. Sorry to break it to you. Don’t blame it on Mary for their lukewarmness. It is their own fault.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
But no one makes recite any marian prayers you are uncomfortable with. Don’t let some people’s poetic extravagance trouble you.
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Mary is not some extravagance.
This most Holy Synod deliberately teaches this Catholic doctrine and at the same time admonishes all the sons of the Church that the cult, especially the liturgical cult, of the Blessed Virgin, be generously fostered, and the practices and exercises of piety, recommended by the magisterium of the Church toward her in the course of centuries be made of great moment, and those decrees, which have been given in the early days regarding the cult of images of Christ, the Blessed Virgin and the saints, be religiously observed.(22*)
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puzzleannie said:
look at the grammar of the full construction
Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. the construction properly labels her for what she is, Mother of Mercy, that is, Mother of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, who is Mercy, and who is our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope. The reference IS to Jesus, not to her.
Click to expand...
Well no, in my prayerbook it’s ‘Hail Holy queen, Mother of Mercy, hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.’ The title is another way of addressing Mary, and is not referring to her as ‘Mother of’’ our life etc. The words are just not there. Are you using a different version?
 
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