MARIAN PRAYER OF SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA (A.D. 1347-1380)

O Mary, temple of the Trinity.

O Mary, bearer of fire.

O Mary, dispenser of mercy.

O Mary, restorer of human generation,

because the world was repurchased

by means of the sustenance

that your flesh found in the Word,

Christ repurchased the world

with his Passion

and you with your suffering.

O Mary, peaceful ocean.

O Mary, giver of peace.

O Mary, fruitful land.

You, O Mary,

are that new plant

from which we have the fragrant flower of the Word,

only-begotten Son of God,

because this Word was sown in you,

O fruitful land.

You are the land and the plant.

O Mary, vehicle of fire

you bore the fire hidden

and veiled beneath the ash of your humanity.

O Mary, vase of humility,

in which there burns the light of true knowledge

with which you lifted yourself above yourself

and yet were pleasing to the eternal Father;

hence he took

and brought you to himself,

loving you with a singular love.

With this light and fire of your charity

and with the oil of your humility,

you drew and inclined His divinity

to come into you,

although He was first drawn to us

by the most ardent fire of His inestimable charity.

Today, O Mary,

you have become a book

in which our rule is written.

In you, today,

is written the wisdom of the eternal Father.

In you, today,

is manifested the strength and freedom of all humankind.

I say that the dignity of humankind

is manifested because when I look at you, O Mary,

I see that the hand of the Holy Spirit

has written the Trinity in you,

forming in you the Incarnate Word,

the only begotten Son of God.

He has written for us

the wisdom of the Father,

that is, the Word.

He has written for us his power,

because he was powerful

in effecting this great mystery.

And He has written for us

the clemency of that Holy Spirit,

because only through grace

and the Divine clemency

was so great a mystery ordained and accomplished.

But today I ardently make my request,

because it is the day of graces,

and I know that nothing is refused to you, O Mary.

Today, O Mary,

your land has generated the Saviour for us.

O Mary, blessed are you among women

throughout the ages.

Amen.