The Hail, Holy Queen (known in Latin as the Salve Regina) is one of the oldest and most beloved prayers to the Mother of God, attributed to Hermann of Reichenau in the 11th century. Catholics pray it when they need Mary’s intercession in difficult seasons—when exile feels real, when hope feels distant, when the valley of tears is not a metaphor.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Hermann of Reichenau, 11th century
How this prayer works
This prayer names the human condition plainly: we are exiles, mourning in a valley of tears. It does not soften the ache of life in a fallen world. Instead, it asks Mary, the Mother of Mercy, to turn her eyes toward us and lead us home to her Son. Hermann of Reichenau composed it during the medieval period when monastic communities prayed it at the close of Compline, the final prayer of the day.
The three titles at the end—clement, loving, sweet—are not decoration. They describe Mary’s maternal tenderness, the quality that allows her to hear sighs too deep for words. The prayer does not ask Mary to solve our problems directly. It asks her to advocate, to show us Jesus, to make us worthy of His promises.
Pray it slowly at the end of the day, when the weight of exile feels heaviest. Let each phrase settle before moving to the next. The Church has prayed these words for nearly a thousand years. You are not alone in the valley.
