The prayers of the Christian people to the Mother of God — what they are, and how they began.
From the very first centuries of the Church, the Christian people have spoken to the Mother of God in their own voices. Some prayers came from Scripture itself; others were given by saints; others rose from the long, silent prayer of cathedrals and shepherds and grandmothers across two thousand years.
This page gathers the most beloved of them. For each, we offer a brief history, the text itself, and a few words on how it has been prayed.
Sub Tuum Praesidium — the oldest known Marian prayer
In 1917, scholars at the John Rylands Library in Manchester examined a small fragment of Egyptian papyrus they had recently catalogued. To their astonishment, they found a Greek prayer addressing Mary as Theotokos — the God-bearer.
The papyrus was dated to roughly the year 250 A.D. — a full century and a half before the Council of Ephesus formally defined that title in 431. The prayer it preserved, Sub Tuum Praesidium (“Beneath Your Protection”), is the oldest known prayer addressed to the Virgin Mary anywhere in the Christian world.
It is still prayed today, virtually unchanged, in the Roman, Byzantine, Coptic, Ambrosian, and Maronite liturgies — a thread of unbroken Marian devotion that reaches from the catacombs of Egypt to every continent on earth.
When you say it, you are praying the same words a Christian whispered in a time of persecution, eighteen hundred years ago.
Beneath your protection we take refuge, O Theotokos.
— Sub Tuum Praesidium, c. 250 AD
Despise not our petitions in our necessities,
but deliver us always from all dangers,
O glorious and blessed Virgin.
The Magnificat — Mary’s own song
Mary, newly pregnant with the Word made flesh, walks the hill country of Judea to visit her cousin Elizabeth. When the elder woman greets her — “Blessed art thou among women” — Mary breaks into song.
What follows in Luke 1:46-55 is the longest passage of speech given to any woman in the New Testament — and one of the most theologically dense. The young Virgin praises God who “has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly,” echoing the Old Testament song of Hannah and the prophetic voice of Israel.
For nearly two thousand years, the Magnificat has been chanted at Vespers every evening across the entire Catholic and Orthodox world. Composers from Palestrina and Bach to Vivaldi, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Arvo Pärt have set it to music.
It is, in a real sense, Mary’s own theology of God — and it has shaped the heart of the Church longer than the Creed itself.
The Magnificat is prayed every evening at Vespers. Across the time zones, the Church begins its evening with Mary’s song.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
— The Magnificat, Luke 1:46–55
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;
for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud,
he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.
The Hail Mary
The most-prayed prayer in Christian history, after the Our Father. Estimated to be recited more than a billion times a day on the lips of Catholics around the world.
The first half is the words of Gabriel at the Annunciation (Luke 1:28) joined to the words of Elizabeth at the Visitation (Luke 1:42) — two greetings made one prayer. By the 11th century, this “Angelic Salutation” was already being prayed across Europe.
The second half — “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death” — was added gradually in the late Middle Ages and finalized by Pope Pius V in 1568.
It is the prayer of the Rosary; it is the prayer at the heart of the Angelus; it is the prayer Catholics teach to children, whisper at the bedside of the dying, and breathe in moments of fear or thanksgiving.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
The Memorare
“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided…”
For centuries the Memorare was attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), the great Cistercian abbot whose Marian sermons shaped medieval devotion. Modern scholarship now credits its present form to a 17th-century French priest, Claude Bernard (1588–1641), who carried Memorare cards through the prisons of Paris and is said to have given them to the condemned.
But whoever first wrote it, the prayer caught fire. It is the most direct, trusting, almost insistent of all Marian prayers — the one a Catholic prays in a moment of desperation, when there is nothing left to do but throw oneself onto the mercy of the Mother.
Saint Mother Teresa would say it nine times in a row when she needed something urgently, calling it her “Express Novena.”
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
— The Memorare
that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help, or sought thy intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence,
I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother;
to thee do I come, before thee I stand,
sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.
The Salve Regina — Hail, Holy Queen
One of the four great Marian antiphons of the Latin Church (with the Alma Redemptoris Mater, the Ave Regina Caelorum, and the Regina Caeli), the Salve Regina is sung at Compline from the Saturday before Trinity Sunday until the Saturday before Advent — covering more than half the liturgical year.
Tradition attributes its composition to Hermann of Reichenau (Hermannus Contractus, “the Cripple”) — an 11th-century Benedictine monk who, despite being born severely disabled, became one of the most accomplished theologians, mathematicians, and astronomers of his age, and a beloved poet.
The Salve Regina is also the closing prayer of every Rosary. And in many Catholic religious orders, it is the last prayer sung at the deathbed of a brother or sister: “O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary” — accompanying the soul out of this life and into the arms of the Mother.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,
— Salve Regina, c. 1050
our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
The Angelus
Three times a day — at six in the morning, at noon, and at six in the evening — Catholic church bells across the world ring out the same pattern: three sets of three strokes, then a longer peal. It is the bell of the Angelus, calling the faithful to pause from work and remember the Annunciation.
The practice originated in the 11th century in Franciscan and Benedictine monasteries, spreading to parish churches by the 14th century. Until the 20th century, the noon Angelus would stop a peasant in the field, a merchant in the market, a mother in her kitchen — every Catholic, in every land — to pray together for one minute.
Jean-François Millet’s 1859 painting The Angelus captured this exact moment: a peasant couple in a Normandy field, heads bowed, the basket of potatoes set aside, the distant church spire on the horizon — the bells just ringing, three times the world stopping for prayer.
When Pope Saint John Paul II prayed the Angelus from his apartment window in St. Peter’s Square every Sunday, he was continuing a tradition older than the Renaissance.
V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.
— The Angelus
R. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary…
V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
R. Be it done unto me according to thy word.
Hail Mary…
V. And the Word was made flesh.
R. And dwelt among us.
Hail Mary…
V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
The Regina Caeli
From Easter Sunday until Pentecost — the seven weeks of the Easter Season — the Angelus is replaced by the Regina Caeli, the “Queen of Heaven, rejoice.”
Tradition holds that it was first heard in the 12th century, sung by angels in the streets of Rome during a procession with the icon of the Virgin Mary led by Pope Gregory I — at which a great plague that had been killing the Roman people miraculously ended. Modern historians place its composition somewhere between the 9th and 12th centuries, in a Franciscan or Benedictine monastery.
The prayer is short, joyful, and exultant. “He whom you were worthy to bear, alleluia, has risen as he said, alleluia.” Mary is told the news of the Resurrection she has been waiting for — and the Church, with her, breaks into the Easter alleluias that were silent through Lent.
Sung from the loggia of St. Peter’s by every Pope from Easter to Pentecost, it is the great Marian song of the Resurrection.
Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
— Regina Caeli
For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia,
has risen, as he said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
The Litany of Loreto
A litany is a prayer of many invocations, each followed by the same response — a slow, hypnotic rhythm of devotion that lifts the heart by repetition.
The Litany of Loreto takes its name from the Holy House of Loreto in Italy — the small stone house tradition holds is the very house of Mary in Nazareth, miraculously transported to the hills of central Italy in the 13th century. The litany was being prayed there by the late 1500s; Pope Sixtus V approved it for the universal Church in 1587.
Across the centuries, popes have added new titles for Mary as the needs of the Church and the world have shifted: “Help of Christians” (Pius V, after Lepanto), “Queen of Peace” (Benedict XV, during World War I), “Mother of the Church” (Saint John Paul II, after Vatican II), “Mother of Mercy” (Pope Francis, 2020).
Praying it slowly, one title at a time, is a meditation on every aspect of who Mary is for the Christian people — and an act of confidence that, beneath each of those titles, she hears.
Holy Mary, pray for us.
— from the Litany of Loreto
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Mother of Mercy, pray for us.
Mother of Hope, pray for us.
Mirror of justice, pray for us.
Seat of wisdom, pray for us.
Mystical rose, pray for us.
Tower of David, pray for us.
House of gold, pray for us.
Ark of the covenant, pray for us.
Gate of heaven, pray for us.
Morning star, pray for us.
Health of the sick, pray for us.
Refuge of sinners, pray for us.
Comforter of the afflicted, pray for us.
Queen of all saints, pray for us.
Queen of the most holy Rosary, pray for us.
Queen of peace, pray for us.
Journey with Mary: A Path to Jesus 