PRAYER OF ST. AUGUSTINE TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

O blessed Virgin Mary, who can worthily repay you with just dues of praise and thanksgiving, you who by the wondrous assent of your will rescued a fallen world? What songs of praise can our weak human nature recite in your honor, since it is by your intervention alone that it has found the way to restoration.

Accept, then, our gratitude and obtain by your prayers the remission of our offenses. Carry our prayers within the sanctuary of the heavenly audience and bring forth from it the antidote of our reconciliation.

May the sins we bring before Almighty God through you, become pardonable; may what we ask for with sure confidence, through you, be granted. Take our offering, grant us our requests, obtain pardon for our sins, for you are the sole hope of sinners. Through you we hope for the remission of our sins, and in you, O blessed Lady, is our hope of reward.

Holy Mary, succor the miserable, help the fainthearted, comfort the sorrowful, pray for your people, plead for the clergy, intercede for all women consecrated to God; may all who venerate you feel now your help and protection.

Be ever ready to assist us when we pray and bring back to us the answers to our prayers. Make it your continual care to pray for the people of God, you who, blessed by God, were made worthy to bear the Redeemer of the world, who lives and reigns, world without end. Amen.

-St. Augustine of Hippo-