Hail Holy Queen — the Marian antiphon of Ordinary Time

Sung at Compline, and over the coffins of monks and nuns.

The Salve Regina is the great Marian antiphon of the Church’s evening. It is sung at the end of Compline from Trinity Sunday until Advent, prayed at the close of the Rosary, and sung at the graveside when a religious is buried — the last thing the community does for one of its own.

The Prayer

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.

Eia ergo, advocata nostra,
illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
Et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

In English

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,
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 Versicle

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

About This Prayer

The antiphon dates from the eleventh century and has been attributed to Hermann of Reichenau, a monk disabled from birth who could barely speak or move. Whether or not he wrote it, the tradition fits: it is a prayer of exiles, and it does not pretend that this life is anything other than a valley of tears. What it asks for is not rescue from the valley but a face turned toward us in it.