Blessed Virgin and Child

Hail Mary, white lily of the glorious and always serene Trinity. Hail, brilliant rose of the garden of heavenly delights. O you by whom God wanted to be born, and by whose milk the King of heaven wanted to be nourished, nourish our soul with effusions of divine grace. Amen

Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. “This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death.” It is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion: Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: “Woman, behold your son.”

Virgin Mother, my Mother, come to the aid of my children.

May your blessing accompany them, guard them, and defend them. May it encourage them, sustain them in every difficulty, and in every place.

When they go off to work or to play, when they move from place to place, at every step they take, Virgin Mother, my Mother, watch over them.

When they face challenges and suffering, when the Evil One tries to seduce them with the attractions of pleasure, of violence, of temptation, of bad example, Virgin Mother, my Mother, watch over them.

Virgin Mother, watch over them and preserve them from every evil.

When they approach the Sacred Banquet to be fed with the Bread of Angels, with the Word that was made flesh in your womb, Virgin Mother, my Mother, bless my children.

When at night they prepare to rest so as to rise again with new energy, watch over their slumber and make each new day a step toward their eternal Homeland.

Virgin Mother, my Mother, bless my children, descend over them, in the day and in the night, in moments of joy and moments of sadness, in health and in sickness, in life and in death.

Bring them to live with you forever in eternity. Amen.