Traditional prayer
The Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one 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 I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful;
O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions; but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
Latin
Memorare, O piissima Virgo Maria, non esse auditum a saeculo quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia, tua implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia, esse derelictum.
Ego tali animatus confidentia, ad te, Virgo virginum, Mater, curro, ad te venio, coram te gemens peccator assisto;
noli, Mater Verbi, verba mea despicere, sed audi propitia, et exaudi. Amen.
Latin The Raccolta (1910), no. 196, p. 175, the Latin printed beside the English (æ written as ae)
About this prayer
Memorare is Latin for “Remember,” the prayer’s first word. It is built the way a daughter pleads with her mother. First the ground: no one who ever fled to her was left unaided. Then the act: inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee. Then the plain truth about who is asking: sinful and sorrowful. Only then the request, and it is a simple one: despise not my petitions, but hear and answer me.
One title carries the whole prayer: O Mother of the Word Incarnate. Everything the Memorare expects of Mary rests on who her Son is. Her motherhood toward us was given at the Cross: “Woman, behold thy son… Behold thy mother” (John 19:26–27, Douay-Rheims). The Catechism teaches that, since Jesus comes to us through her, we may place every care in her hands and ask her prayer now and at our death (CCC 2677), and that whatever help she gives flows from Christ, the one Mediator, and takes nothing from Him (CCC 970).
Who wrote it? The prayer is often credited to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, but that is an attribution, not a record. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), writing of Claude Bernard (1588–1641), the Paris priest known as “the poor priest,” says that he “contributed much to popularize the beautiful prayer to the Blessed Virgin known as the Memorare, sometimes attributed to him but certainly of an earlier date.” Its first author is unknown. Its standing has never rested on a signature, but on the confidence of the people who pray it.
The English here is the 1910 Raccolta’s, in the public domain, printed there beside the Latin. Notice its last words: “in thy clemency hear and answer me.” Clemency is mercy freely given. Hers is a mother’s, and all of it is drawn from her Son, on whom it wholly depends (CCC 970).
When to pray it
- In any need, and above all the urgent ones you cannot yet put into words.
- When the need will not wait: pray it slowly, then again, until you have handed the thing over.
- At a bedside, in a waiting room, outside a child’s closed door.
- At the end of the Rosary, after the Hail, Holy Queen.
- Taught early to children, so that it is there when they are grown and afraid.
Any indulgences named on this page are those recorded in the older prayer books it cites. Pope Paul VI reformed the Church's indulgences in 1967 (Indulgentiarum Doctrina); the current rules are in the Church's Enchiridion of Indulgences.