Queen of the Silent Light

RileyG said:

I believe it's from St. Bernard of Clirvaux, who is a Roman Catholic saint, NOT Eastern Orthodox.

(posting in fellowship)

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RileyG said:

I believe it's from St. Bernard of Clirvaux, who is a Roman Catholic saint, NOT Eastern Orthodox.

(posting in fellowship)

Click to expand...

"Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
Humble and high beyond all other creature,
The limit fixed of the eternal counsel,

Thou art the one who such nobility
To human nature gave, that its Creator
Did not disdain to make himself its creature.

Within thy womb rekindled was the love,
By heat of which in the eternal peace
After such wise this flower has germinated.

Here unto us thou art a noonday torch
Of charity, and below there among mortals
Thou art the living fountain-head of hope.

Lady, thou art so great, and so prevailing,
That he who wishes grace, nor runs to thee,
His aspirations without wings would fly.

Not only thy benignity gives succour
To him who asketh it, but oftentimes
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.

In thee compassion is, in thee is pity,
In thee magnificence; in thee unites
Whate'er of goodness is in any creature.

Now doth this man, who from the lowest depth
Of the universe as far as here has seen
One after one the spiritual lives,

Supplicate thee through grace for so much power
That with his eyes he may uplift himself
Higher towards the uttermost salvation.

And I, who never burned for my own seeing
More than I do for his, all of my prayers
Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short,

That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud
Of his mortality so with thy prayers,
That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed.

Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst
Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve
After so great a vision his affections.

Let thy protection conquer human movements;
See Beatrice and all the blessed ones
My prayers to second clasp their hands to thee!"

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JSRG said:

From what I can tell, it is based on/inspired by a prayer given by Bernard of Clirvaux in Dante Alighieri's famous poem The Divine Comedy (specifically, Paradiso Canto 33). So what it's based on isn't something from the actual Bernard of Clirvaux, but a prayer given by a fictional version of him... most specifically, based on the Longfellow English translation of the poem that is linked, from which various phrases are taken (e.g. "Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son" is directly from it, as is "The limit fixed of the eternal counsel") with others being very close ("thou art a noonday torch of charity" compared to "Thou art the noonday torch of charity").

Here's the full prayer from the start of Canto 33 for comparison:



I am not sure if the original poster made it themselves, or if it was someone else who did it--but it's very clearly based on the prayer from Paradiso Canto 33 (Longfellow English translation).

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