Alma Redemptoris Mater

Mother benign of our redeeming Lord

The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal

Alma Redemptoris Mater quæ pervia cli
Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,
Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quæ genuisti,
Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem,
Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore
Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere.

Mother benign of our redeeming Lord,
Star of the sea and portal of the skies,
Unto thy fallen people help afford
Fallen, but striving still anew to rise.
Thou who didst once, while wondring worlds adored,
Bear thy Creator, Virgin then as now,
O by thy holy joy at Gabriels word,
Pity the sinners who before thee bow.

Author: Ascribed to Hermann Contractus (1013-1054). Meter: Hexameter. Julian’s Dict. of Hymnol. mentions translations by Cardinal Newman, and by Father Caswall and Wallace, O.S.B. For the above translation the editor has to thank the distinguished scholar, the Rt. Rev. Sir David Oswald Hunter-Blair, O.S.B. Liturgical Use: Antiphon of our Blessed Lady from the Vespers of the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent to the Feast of the Purification, inclusive.

“O loving Mother of the Redeemer, who dost remain the ever accessible portal of heaven, and the star of the sea, aid thy fallen people who strive to rise: thou who, a Virgin both before and after receiving that Ave from the mouth of Gabriel, didst, while nature wondered, give birth to thy Holy Creator; have pity on us sinners.”