The Memorare is a brief but extraordinarily powerful prayer of confidence in the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It takes its name from its opening Latin word, Memorare ('Remember'), and is attributed in its modern form to Fr. Claude Bernard, a 17th-century French priest known as 'the Poor Priest' for his apostolate to prisoners and the dying. The prayer was popularized through Fr. Bernard's distribution of more than 200,000 leaflets in pre-Revolution Paris, though its devotional roots reach further back — likely to a longer prayer attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the great Cistercian abbot and Doctor of the Church whose Marian devotion shaped Western piety. The prayer's structure is a confident appeal: it acknowledges Mary's universal maternity (O Virgin of virgins, my mother), references the unbroken tradition of her intercession (never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection… was left unaided), and concludes with a humble petition (in thy mercy hear and answer me). Saints across the centuries have testified to its power: Mother Teresa of Calcutta prayed nine consecutive Memorares daily — what she called her 'flying novena' — when she needed something quickly. The Memorare is the Catholic prayer of last resort, prayed in moments of acute need, at the bedside of the dying, in the chapel before a difficult conversation, or whispered as a parent waits for word from a hospital room.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux