"MEMORARE, O PISSIMA VIRGO MARIA." - A prayer to the Most Holy Virgin, an expression of filial confidence in her, who never closes her ear to the requests of her children. Wrongly attributed to St. Bernard, it nonetheless contains in paraphrase his expressions: "Sileat misericordiam tuam,

"MEMORARE, O PISSIMA VIRGO MARIA" - MEMORIA

Virgo Beata, si quis est qui invocatum te in necessitatibus suis sibi meminerit defuisse" (Serm. IV de Assumpta, 8: PL 183, 428). In its precise present form it is not earlier than the 15th century.

At first it was part of a longer prayer, which began with the words "Ad sanctitatis tuae pedes, dulcissima Virgo Maria, ... memorare non esse auditum a saeculo...". Of this the oldest testimony known so far is the Antidistarius animae of Nicola Saliceto, a Cistercian of Strasbourg, published in 1489 and then in several editions. About ten years later, the M. already appears detached in the Hortulus animae, a collection of prayers prepared under the care of J. Wehinger (Strasbourg 1503).

The prayer became, through the work of the servant of God Claude Bernard (1588-1641), the means of very numerous conversions and prodigies. The servant of God Filippo Roothan, General of the Jesuits, also propagated it with tireless zeal, obtaining an indulgence from Pius IX in 1846, and introduced it as part of a prayer in honor of the Virgin of Peace: "Ave augustissima regina pacis".

It is found almost in the same terms since antiquity also among the Christians of the East ("Nemo ad bonitatem tuam confugit quin cito misericordiam consecutus sit" etc.: Canon, Paraclet, in SS. Deiparam, Opus Photi. Cf. A. Ballerini, Sylloge monument., I, Rome 1854, p. 481).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: J. B. Terrien, La Mère de Dieu et la Mère des hommes, II, 1, Paris 1902, p. 494; L. Paulus, Das Alter des Gebetes Memorare, in Zeitschr. f. kathol. Theol., 26 (1902), pp. 604-606; P. De Santi, Maria Regina Pacis, in Civ. Catt., 1915, I, pp. 335-45; E. Campana, Maria nel culto cattolico, I, Turin 1933, pp. 801-807.

Arnaldo Lanz

@incollection{ec8_memorare_o_piissima_virgo_mari, author = {Lanz, Arnaldo Maria}, title = {Memorare, o piissima virgo maria}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {660--661}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/memorare-o-piissima-virgo-maria} }

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Memorare, O Most Pious Virgin Mary

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