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by Laura
Cioni
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus
sancta Dei Genitrix.
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus
sed a periculis cunctis
libera nos semper, virgo gloriosa et benedicta.
[Under your protection we seek refuge,
holy Mother of God:
despise not our entreaties
in time of trials,
but free us from every peril,
oh glorious and blessed Virgin.]
This ancient antiphon, indicated by the liturgy as a conclusion to
Night Prayer, is certainly well suited to the request for protection
made by those who seek repose after the work of the day, but it can
also invite us to further reflection.
Indeed, while the word “protection,” referring to Mary, can
immediately call forth the motherly sweetness of a gaze and the
shelter offered by her cloak, as appears often in the iconography of
the Blessed Virgin, we must not forget that praesidium is originally a
military term, a place of defense and strength.
Every person fights his own battle, day after day. The Church knows
this, and for this reason suggests words that express, in simple ways,
the thoughts, feelings, and concerns that sometimes we do not know how
to make explicit, and yet that we feel to be fully understandable and
brought together in this or that prayer. An ancient formula like this
one makes it easier for us to perceive our unity with all the people
who throughout the centuries and all over the world have fought their
battle and sought the support of the powerful Virgin. It is like going
into an ancient church and feeling it to be filled with the prayer of
so many to whom we owe our life and our faith.
Perhaps it is the repeated plurals (“configimus,” “nostras
deprecationes,” “libera nos semper”) that make this prayer so
affectionate. The choral refrain, shared with the invocation that
concludes the most popular and beloved prayer, “Pray for us sinners,”
is a form powerfully expressing communion, in which the “I” is itself
and at the same time is with everybody else. Nothing perhaps makes us
more united in personally invoking aid in the trials represented by
every circumstance of life than the fact that these same words imply
the trials and circumstances of all.
The communion of saints, as we have frequently read in recent months
in Dante’s verses comprising the Hymn to the Virgin, is born out of
the “warmth” of God’s love, with Mary at its center. Her gaze, falling
on us from above, but without despising our difficulties (“ne
despicias”), meets our gaze upturned toward her and makes us, to the
extent possible on this earth, share in that divine warmth from which
we all draw life.
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