Mater Ecclesiae, ora pro nobis

Last weekend, I was away with my dad and brother, fishing in the northern lower peninsula - did you know that word is from paene + insula, I just discovered that - and rather than taking the couple books which I normally use for my daily prayers, I took just one, for ease of carrying, a Handbook of Prayers published by Scepter Publishers. It's an Opus Dei work - if that's not redundant - small, compact, but filled with nearly the range of traditional prayers (in both Latin and English) and devotions plus a missal for the ordinary, including all of the Eucharistic prayers for the Novus Ordo Missae.


I have to back up again: the day we drove to Newark to fly out on the pilgrimage to Chartres, we were reciting litanies in the car. After we had completed the Litany of Loreto, one fellow passenger, who was not joining us on the pilgrimage, Ericus, pointed out that we had omitted some invocations or titles from the Litany. We had forgotten, he said, "Queen of the family, ora pro nobis.... Well, I dare say that I would not want to omit any of Our Lady's titles, but the fact is, "Queen of the family," is simply not in the Raccolta. Now the Raccolta of which we speak was new back in, oh, 1957. But at home, I've generally been praying the Litany of Loreto from my FSSP breviary.

When we stopped in Scranton to receive Fr. Gismondi's blessing before we left, we did inquire about the "Queen of the family" business, but did not find a definitive answer, as I recall. I also believe that, by phone, for his person was sadly absent from ours on that trip, we put Ambrosius to work investigating the origin of this "Queen of the family" business.

Now back to the Opus Dei prayer book which I use for various things - I had not yet used it for praying the Litany of Loreto, but on this last fishing trip, I did. And much to my chargin (though it's this point I want to discuss), I found that the Litaniae Lauretanae in the Opus Dei book is not the same one, on account of several additions, as the Litaniae Lauretanae one finds in the Raccolta or old Roman Breviary. These are the new titles I found in the Opus Dei book:

Mater Ecclesiae, ora pro nobis . . .

(Mater immaculata) - and they had it in brackets like that

Regina familiae

I don't know why "Mater immaculata" was in there in brackets. Does this indicate that it's an Opus Dei suggestion, though not yet official? "Mater Ecclesiae" and "Mater immaculata" make perfect sense to me, though no one cared to put it in the litany after the definition of the dogma, like "Regina in caelum assumpta", though I don't really know when the various titles were added.

I think that "Regina familiae", a John Paul II addition, is just silly business. I can understand why he would want to put it in there, but if I'm close to fathoming his reasons, it seems to me a title which lacks a timeless character: in a time of distress for the family, we really need patronage for the family, yes, but does this justify an addition in the Litany of Loreto?

I could get used to these new titles quickly enough, but my usual practice is to rely on the old stuff, the older books, etc., and here would seem to be an instance where such a practice would put me, or other traditionalists, out of step. Our general reaction is often: if it's new, it's probably bad - but there's nothing wrong with "Mater Ecclesiae", a title which, depending on whom you ask, the Council Fathers either rejoiced at the proclamation thereof or with which they were not at all impressed.

I guess that Ambrosius is one person who could answer some questions here: what's in the latest books that Ambrosii Mater brought back from Rome for you? Is "Mater Immaculata" to be found therein? But I wonder what people do in general, when the pray the Litany of Loreto, do they use the new or the old version?

It seems to me that in the bad, old days, people probably new the Litany better, they used it more often, or had heard of it at all. Does the average Novus Catholic have any exposure to it? Would he recognize it?

There's some nice information about the Litany here and he, as you will see, has included the new titles. Fisheaters also has all of the titles, along with a little note at the end about what they do in Poland.



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