'Holy Mary, our most Blessed Queen and Mother'

  

                                        'Our Lady of Walsingham'




Song to Our Lady

Medieval:  Author Unknown

Of one who is so fair and bright

Velut Maris Stella

Brighter than the day is light,

Parens et puella.

I cry to thee to turn to me:

Lady, pray thy Son for me,

Tam pia.

That I may come to thee,

Maria. 



In sorrow, counsel, thou art best,

Felix fecundate:

For all the weary thou art rest,

Mater honorata:

Beseech Him in thy mildest mood,

Who for us did shed His Blood

In Cruce,

That we may come to Him

In luce.



All this world was forlorn,

Eva peccatrice,

Till Our Saviour Lord was born

De te genetrice;

With thy Ave sin went away,

Dark night went and in came day

Salutis.

The well of healing sprang from thee,

Virtutis.



Lady, flower of everything,

Rosa sine spina,

Thou borest Jesus, Heaven’s King,

Gratia Divina.

Of all I say thou borest the prize,

Lady, Queen of Paradise

Electa:

Maiden mild, Mother

Es effecta.



 Well He knows He is thy Son,

Ventre quem portasti:

He will not refuse thy bone,

Parvum quem lactasti:

So courteous and so good He is,

He has brought us to our bliss

Superni.

Who hast shut up the dark foul pit

Inferni.



Bone, request.

The alternate Latin lines mean:

            As the star of the sea

            Mother and maid

            So loving

            Mary

            Happy and with offspring

            Honourable Mother

On the Cross

In light

From Eve a sinner

Of thee mother

Of salvation

Of virtue

Rose without a thorn

Grace Divine

Elect

Thou art become

Whom thou didst bear in the womb

Whom thou didst suckle as a baby

Of heaven

Of hell.

                                 Medieval: author unknown.         

                                    (ack.’The Mary Book’ – Sheed and Ward 1950)

                                               

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‘The May Magnificat’             by   Gerard Manley Hopkins

May is Mary’s month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why;

            Her feasts follow reason

            Dated due to season--------

Candlemas, Lady Day;

But the Lady Month, May,

            Why fasten that upon her,

            With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter

Than the most are must delight her?

            Is it opportunest

            And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:

Her reply puts this other

            Question:  What is Spring?

            Growth in every thing --------

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,

Grass and greenworld all together;

            Star-eyed strawberry- breasted

            Throstle above her nested.

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin

Forms and warms the life within:

            And bird and blossom swell

            In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing

Mary sees, sympathising

            With that world of good,

            Nature’s motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind

With delight calls to mind

            How she did in her stored

            Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:

Spring’s universal bliss

            Much, had much to say

            To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple

Bloom lights the orchard-apple

            And thicket and thorp are merry

            With silver-surfed cherry.

And azuring-over greybell makes

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes

            And magic cuckoocall

            Caps, clears, and clinches all -----

This ecstasy all through mothering earth

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s  birth.

            To remember and exultation

            In God who was her salvation.

                                                                       Gerard Manley Hopkins

                                                         (ack. ‘The Mary Book’ Sheed and Ward  1950)

                                              

                                       

                                        *********************

'Our Lady of Walsingham'   (ack. Saracen 78 at Wikipedia)

                                           ***********

“But He, taking her by the hand, cried out, saying:  Maid, arise.

And her spirit returned,  and she arose immediately.  And He bid them  to give her to eat”  (Luke viii.  54/5)

A friend of Our Lord’s in Galilee

Had a dear little girl who died.

Her mother was sad, and her father was sad,

And everybody cried.

Our Lord was coming to make her well,

But she died before He came,

So they told Him not to bother,

But He bothered all the same.

He took the little girl’s hand in His,

And said:  “Little maid, arise!”

And the little girl came to life again,

Sat up, and opened her eyes!

Death must come to stay at last

And sorrow hard to bear,

But it doesn’t really matter,

So long as Our Lord is there.

            So we ask Our Lady

            To pray for us then

And come to us and bring her Son

“At the hour of our death.

                                                Amen.”

    Taken from ‘The Hail Mary’  by  Margaret Hunt.

                 (Ack. The Mary Book  Sheed and Ward 1950.