Collection: Memorare

ARTIST: Br. Mickey McGrath, OSFS

ARTWORK NARRATIVE:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly to you.

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Do you ever feel like you could use some help approaching God in your prayers? The Memorare is a prayer that reminds us that we have a wonderful advocate and protector in the mother of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, pictured at right.

In our prayers to her we honor and worship her Son, who is more than happy to listen to His mother's pleas on our behalf.

The Memorare, printed below, invites us to ask the Blessed Mother for her assistance and her grace, especially when we feel most troubled in our daily lives.

REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

The actual author of the Memorare is unknown. It has been traditionally attributed to the abbot St. Bernard of Clairvaux from the 12th century. This is possibly because it was championed by another Bernard, the French priest Claude Bernard, who used it extensively in his ministry to the poor and to prisoners (including some quite hardened criminals!) in the 17th century.

Claude Bernard credited reciting the Memorare with curing him of a serious illness. He had some 200,000 copies of the prayer printed up and distributed in leaflets in various languages during his lifetime.

Upon her death and assumption into heaven, “God chose her to be the treasurer, the administrator and the dispenser of all his graces, so that all his graces and gifts pass through her hands," according to St. Louis De Montfort, the celebrated 18th century French priest best known as a champion of devotion to Mary.

Mary's wonderful role in assisting in our salvation has been praised by many Saints and Church fathers alike over the centuries. St. Lawrence Justinian summed up the feelings of many of them when he once referred to the Blessed Mother as “the ladder of paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and man."