First Conference – Reflections on the Salve Maria

The Salve Regina is a very old Marian Hymn. It is a hymn that totally expresses the authentic teaching of the Church concerning the Blessed ever-Virgin Mary and her key role in Salvation History.

For that reason the Church, very early on, incorporated it into its Liturgy of the Hours. Some religious orders used it every day at Vespers, that is, what we now call Evening Prayer; and so it was used by our Carmelite predecessors.

Prior to Vatican II, the Salve Regina was used as the Marian Hymn that concluded the Liturgy of the Hours: Compline, or Night Prayer, from Pentecost to Advent. Also, prior to Vatican II, we in the Order used to chant the Solemn Salve Regina every Saturday evening as a separate, traditional community devotion. Prior to Vatican II, as well, when all Priests of the Order celebrated Mass individually, we used to recite the Salve Regina during Mass just after the last blessing and prior to the reading of the Last Gospel.

In ancient times, the text of the Salve Regina differed slightly from what we use today, nevertheless, Carmelite tradition has it that the Hermits of the Order who chose to remain in the Holy Land and not migrate to Europe, were singing this Marian hymn, which is also a prayer, when the Saracens burst into their oratory and put them all to death.

The Salve Regina is, therefore, very sacred to the Carmelites. As it is for the Church in general, this Marian Hymn/Prayer is for the Orders of Carmel, as well, a compendium of our Devotion to her, even though it makes no specific mention of her as Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

So with all that in mind, let us begin to reflect a bit upon the words and phrases that make up this prayer. I will be basing my reflections on the Latin version, since that is the language in which it was composed.

The opening word, SALVE, is a word of greeting. When used by those who spoke Latin as their vernacular, it was a greeting that was also a kind of prayer. Although we translate it as Hail, which is the ancient English equivalent of our modern “Hello” or “Hi”, when used in ancient Rome it meant: “Be well, be healthy!” Or “May you be well and healthy!” This helps us to see that the word Salve is related to our word Salvation, which refers to the state of the soul that has been rescued from Spiritual illness and eternal death.

When we greet the Blessed ever-Virgin Mary in this way, we are in effect praying, that is, desiring for her the state of perfect health, or complete wholeness.

This salutation is, then, an act of love. It is an act of the purest of all loves, the love we call benevolence. When we have this kind of love for another person we habitually desire and will what is good, indeed, what is best for that person. It is pure because it has no admixture of selfish interest in it, it focuses on the loved on alone.

But you may be wondering: In what way can I desire good for Our Blessed Mother, The Immaculate Conception, the Full of Grace, Most beloved daughter of God the Father, Mother of Jesus God the Son, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit? She has it all!!

Well, the answer to that is found in the words of this prayer/hymn that immediately follow the greeting SALVE. Those words are: REGINA and MATER. Queen and Mother. And for the purposes of these reflections, we can consider the salutation with Regina and Mater separately, or we can consider them together with the greeting Salve. That is, we can say either Salve Regina, or we can say Salve Regina Mater, meaning, respectively, Hail Queen, or Queen Mother.

When we say SALVE REGINA we are saying to Our Lady: “May you find complete perfection and happiness in your status as Queen”. Or, to paraphrase: “May your rule, your authority and your jurisdiction as Queen be complete, may no person or thing be excluded from it. May your Queenship be acknowledged and respected by all rational creatures, such that everything you desire for your subjects may be perfectly realized”.

When we say SALVE REGINA MATER (Hail Queen Mother), we extend the reach of our prayer for the completeness of her royal influence and authority to include the King Himself, who is Jesus, her Son. In this way we are reminded of the Queen Mothers of the Kings of Judah in the Old Testament. According to a book written a few years ago on this subject, the true Queen of the Kingdom of Judah was not one of the many wives of the reigning King, a descendent of King David, but the mother of the reigning King. Thus the king was able to acknowledge his debt of gratitude to his mother, who was in turn, one of the many wives of the King’s father and his predecessor as King. The King allowed himself, surely even thought it was his duty, to let himself be influenced and guided by the maternal instincts of his Queen/Mother.

So when we say SALVE REGINA MATER, we introduce our recognition of her Son Jesus as our Divine King, and of the fact that He cannot refuse her anything she seriously requests of Him. Indeed, Jesus finds His joy in allowing Himself to be influenced and guided by her most holy and most perfect maternal instincts and intuitions, her desires and her love for all her children. We can say with confidence that all of Marian doctrine on the role of Mary in Salvation History is summed up in those words SALVE REGINA MATER. It is a more complete prayer than SALVE REGINA, because it says: “May all your desires for the happiness of your King/Son and for all your human children/subjects be utterly and perfectly fulfilled, so that you, dearest Mary, will experience and enjoy complete fulfillment and happiness as Queen Mother”.

Let us now reflect on the meaning of both these alternative rendering in conjunction with what immediately follows in the text of the Salve Regina. We can consider the phrasing: Hail Queen Mother of Mercy, or we can say: Hail Queen (comma) Mother of Mercy. First let us consider the rendering Hail Queen Mother of Mercy.

When we say it this way, we certainly call attention to the fact that the highest and most characteristic attribute that Mary exercises in her practical role, as Queen Mother is Mercy. She excels in mercy both as Queen and as Mother.

As Mother, it is compassion, one of the components of Mercy that predominates in her. That is because, by the very nature of things, the love of a mother for her children binds her so closely to each one of them that she really and truly can be said to live vicariously in each and every one of her children. Or perhaps better, she experiences vicariously everything that befalls any one of her children.

This is certainly true of Mary as the Mother of Jesus. Because she is the Co-redemptrix, we know for sure that she experienced in her spirit, in her soul, all the bitter passion of Jesus Her Son. Of course, she experienced vicariously all His joys as well, and we can say that her joy as Mother reaches its upper limit when Jesus is fully and completely happy.

Thus she finds a deep, deep joy in her sufferings as Co-redemptress, even as Jesus found deep, deep joy in His suffering as Redeemer, because those sufferings redeemed the world and made possible the salvation of souls. It is the salvation of souls that brings to each of them the best and highest kind of happiness. So in effect, this phrase, Queen Mother of Mercy includes Our Lady’s titles Mother of Sorrows and Queen of Martyrs as well as the title, Co-Redemptress.

Of course, the compassion of Mary is not restricted to Jesus alone. It extends to all her children. It extends to every human being, as a matter of fact, because the reach of her role as Queen Mother is co-extensive with the reach of the Redemptive Sufferings of Jesus. In virtue of Her vicarious suffering on Calvary Mary really and truly gave birth to the Church. More exactly, she became the spiritual Mother of every human being who comes into this world because Jesus died to make salvation available to every human being who comes into this world, whether born or unborn.

But compassion is only one component of the attribute of Mercy. The other and necessarily complementary component is the power and the authority to alleviate the sufferings that are vicariously experienced because of one’s compassion. It is this second aspect of Our Blessed Mother’s role in Salvation History that is conveyed by the word Queen in her title, Queen Mother. Therefore, when we greet Our Blessed Mother with the prayer: Hail Queen Mother of Mercy, we are acknowledging that she makes use of all the influence and authority she enjoys over the Heart of Her Son Jesus, to move Him to grant the graces and the spiritual resources that will lead to the salvation of souls. And not only does she use Her power and authority to obtain for sinners the graces of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation with God, but also all the graces her children need so that their share in the Divine Life, which is really the Life of Jesus in their souls, be deepened, strengthened, and increased.

Consider now, the traditional rendering of these words: Hail Queen (comma) Mother of Mercy. In Latin it would be Salve Regina and Mater misericordiae separated by a comma.

All by itself, the phrase Mother of Mercy leaves aside the notion of Mary as Queen, as though it were possible for us to consider her wearing her Crown as Queen on some occasions, and her bonnet so to speak, as Mother on other occasions. Even the saying of St. Therese: Mary is more Mother than Queen seems to support this notion.

We’ve already spoken about one way of understanding this phrase, namely, that Mary’s chief attribute as Mother is her mercy. Even apart from her power and authority as Queen, Mary, does have the characteristic maternal power and authority of any mother actively to intervene to relieve the evils, the maladies and the sorrows that afflict her children. Also, she intervenes as mother to confirm and consolidate her children in all that is good.

The other way to understand it is to think of Mary as Mother of Mercy in the sense of her having given birth to Mercy, as if Mercy itself were a child of hers. This may sound strange to some, but it is certainly not incorrect or erroneous.

We recall the great theological truth: In God, everything is God. That is, All of God’s attributes are God. God’s wisdom is God. God’s Justice is God. God’s Omniscience and God’s Omnipotence is each God. Obviously, God’s Love is God, because God is Love. So in all truth, God’s Mercy is God.

Hence, Mary, being the Mother of God, is the Mother of all that is identified with God. We do speak of Jesus as Wisdom Incarnate and Love Incarnate as well as God Incarnate. So certainly Jesus is Mercy Incarnate. Which means, clearly and logically, that Mary is really the birth mother of Mercy. No child would be alive in this world if his or her mother had not given birth to that child. Well, we know that Mercy would not be in this world if Mary did not give birth to Jesus. Mercy would still have been a divine attribute, the highest attribute of love in God, but unless Jesus had become Incarnate in the womb of Mary and born of Her, we would not ever experience that attribute of God in our own personal lives.

Indeed, we owe it to Mary’s FIAT that the Mercy of God has been able to reach, touch and transform us. It was indeed Divine Mercy that gave Mary to us as our tainted nature’s solitary boast. It was the Mercy of God that created her soul Immaculate, that is, preserved it from the least stain of original Sin. It was thus that God created her to be the only child of Adam and Eve capable of being the Mother of the Redeemer. Had she not freely consented to be the Mother of Jesus, the Redemption would never have taken place.

Therefore, we can say that this phrase, Mother of Mercy understood as we have just said, conveys another fundamental truth about the economy of Salvation, namely, that Mary is the Spring from which all graces flow. Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces because all the graces that God the Father is capable of creating and granting are all already contained in Jesus and identified with Him. But Jesus came to us through Mary. Thus, all GOOD, ultimately, had come to us through her.

These are some of the notions that can provide nourishment for our minds and hearts every time we begin to pray the Salve Regina.

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