Sub tuum praesidium
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix.
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus nostris,
sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.
Under thy protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God;
despise not our petitions in our needs,
but from all dangers deliver us always,
Virgin glorious and blessed.
I raised five children, and each of them, as toddlers, found refuge hiding under my skirt. It usually happened when we encountered strangers or ventured somewhere new, its pathways unknown and uncharted. It happened once in our local grocery store when my daughter encountered our pediatrician, out of his office, out of his familiar white coat, out of place—like the lion from the zoo running free in the cereal aisle. My daughter cried out and ducked into the safest place she knew: Mama.
My small children never asked that I “despise not our petitions in our needs.” They understood that hearing their cries and answering their calls was my role. I became for them, in those days when it was in my power, their protector, their refuge, their answer to every petition, to every need. The very name, Mama, is itself a plea. The very name, Mama, is itself an answer to that plea.
So attend to the first word of this prayer: under. “Under,” in Scripture, is a place and a promise of a place, as when the psalmist writes, “Under God’s wings you will find refuge.” Our plea to Mary echoes the pleas she surely made in prayer to God. Our plea to Mary asks that she lead us to that place of promise. It is the place of refuge where Mary dwelled, the place in which she herself became the very bearer of the promise, the ark of refuge, of safety. The unborn Christ found refuge and protection under her flesh, within her womb. The infant Christ found refuge and protection under her cloak, at her breast. In her womb, at her breast, there, every need was met.
“Under” is also a direction, an answer to the question, “Where? Where will we find refuge?” It is a direction to “God’s wings,” under which we find what we seek. We, Mary’s children by baptism, ask her to lead us toward God. We know the journey is long and perilous. And on that journey we ask of her what the Christ child asked of her, refuge “under thy protection.” We seek refuge where Christ sought and found refuge—in his mother.
Melissa Musick, from the October 2022 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022). Used with permission.
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