I was going through a folder yesterday and found something that Lawrence Cunningham wrote in "Give Us This Day" probably last year. It is on the Salve Regina and I think some thoughts are worth sharing as this in one of the four Marian hymns sung at the end of the monastic office known as Compline or Night Prayer. I am copying it here for any who do not know it and then will give some of ideas to reflect on from Cunningham.
Hail, holy Queen, Morthe of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus: O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
This prayer is usually said at the end of the recitation of the rosary. It is a prayer of hope. In it we cry out to Mary and invite Mary to turn her eyes of mercy toward us and asking her to show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of her womb.
Lawrence Cunningham suggests that we can also look at this prayer as a prayer of pilgrimage - a journey for which we need assistance, care, and direction. "It is within this theme of exile that hope resonates so explicitly. To reflect on this is to be reminded that Mary's life recorded in the Gospels is one of travel: to her cousin Elizabeth, to shelter in Bethlehem, to safety in Egypt, to the Temple in Jerusalem, to the hill of Calvary."
Let us, then, recite this prayer asking Mary to accompany us on our own life's journey.
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