Ave Maria Meditations
Prayer to Our Lady of Loreto:
O Most Holy Virgin, Mother of Jesus and our Mother, we gratefully honor you in this your humble house which the Most High has made so great by the ineffable Mysteries here accomplished.
Within these hallowed walls where you were conceived without sin and spent your girlhood days in prayer and most sublime love, the Angel saluted you as “Full of Grace” and you answered him with those words of profound humility which opened the heavens and made the Savior of the World descend.
With your worthy spouse Saint Joseph, in the joy of the Word Incarnate who made Himself your Son, you served the Lord aid privations and labor, preparing your heart for the great sacrifice, which together with that of the Divine Victim, you afterwards offered on Calvary to become the Mother of all men redeemed by the Blood of Jesus.
O Mary, grant that our homes may resemble yours; and that, living in grace and without sin, we may some day, together with you, be inhabitants of the House of God, in the eternity of Paradise.
Our Lady of Loreto, pray for us! And for the Franciscans of the Immaculate, whose founder was inspired by his visit to your holy house to found his Order.
For more information on the history of the Holy House of Loreto and how it came to be in Italy, see the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13454b.htm
