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This Month's Prayer
Sub Tuum Praesidium
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus,
Sancta Dei Genitrix;
nostras deprecatione ne despicias
in necessitatibus;
sed a periculis cunctis libera
Virgo gloriosa et benedica
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We fly to your patronage
O holy Mother of God.
Despise not our petitions
In our necessities
but deliver us from all dangers
O ever glorious and blessed Virgin.
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Did you know that the most ancient prayer to Our Lady is written on papyrus?
Thanks to modern technology not only is it possible to trace the original form of this prayer to Egypt (the original form is in Greek) but this document is appreciated for its antique value as it has been dated to the 4th Century A.D.
Today this precious example makes up part of the Rylands collection, in Manchester, which also boasts the possession of the oldest fragments of Saint John's Gospel (Chapter 28 verses 31-33 and 37-38).
This month we have chosen to offer to Our Lady this most ancient prayer, which is recited at the end of the Litany in honour of the Virgin Mary and also inserted between the invocations at Night Prayers which finishes the Liturgy of the Hours.
It is a brief and simple but very effective text, thanks to the words used, indeed it is enough to linger on the title of this Marian antiphon. "Sub tuum praesidium", to be able to discover its most profound sentiments.
"Praesidium" is in fact a term of military origin, a term that means the place of refuge for the military garrison. The Virgin Mary therefore is the refuge of Christians, the mother to whom we turn, because it is certain that she will always hear us and strengthen us, above all in difficult moments. In this antiphon both the human and divine nature of Mary is evident, how the mother meets the needy glances of her faithful and how the Virgin intercedes for them to her son Jesus who is close by.
This antiphon is so fitting because it is true that in everyday life we carry out our own little battles in the situations or "status" that we find ourselves in, we will not find a more faithful and merciful ally than the Virgin Mary.
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2673):
"In prayer the Holy Spirit unites us to the person of the only Son, in his glorified humanity, through which and in which our filial prayer unites us in the Church with the Mother of Jesus"
From Holy Scripture:
"All of these things together gave themselves to constant prayer. With them were some women and also Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers." (Acts 1: 14)
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