Commentary on O Maria, Stella Maris: Adam of St. Victor: Sr. Marie Bertrand Shigo, OP: Doctoral Dissertation: Loyola University, Chicago: 1954.

Commentary on O Maria, Stella Maris: Adam of St. Victor: Sr. Marie Bertrand Shigo, OP: Doctoral Dissertation:  Loyola University, Chicago: 1954.

“Adam of St. Victor is at his best in the Marian sequences. O Maria, Stella Maris urgently begs the Blessed Virgin to be a real star of the Sea to the whole shipwrecked world. Its theme is the sorrow and pain of mortal life, sweetened only by the thought of the Blessed Mother”.

O MARlA, STELLA MARIS PIETATE: Adam of St. Victor

O Maria, stella maris,

pietate singularis,

pietatis oculo,

nos digneris intueri,

ne cuncteris misereri

naufraganti saeculo.

In hac valle lacrimarum
nihil dulce, nihil carum,
suspecta sunt omnia.

Quid hic nobis erit tutum,
cum nec ipsa vel virrutum
tuta sit victoria?

Caro nobis adversatur,
mundus carni suffragatur
in nos tram perniciem.

Hostis instat nos infestans,
nunc se palam manifestans,
nunc occultans rabiem.

Et peccamus et punimur,
et diversis irretimur
laqueis venantium.

O Maria, mater Dei,

tu post Deum summa spei,
tu dulce refugium.

Tot et tantis irretiti,
non valemus his reniti
nec vi nec  industria.

Consolatrix miserorum,
suscitatrix mortuorum,
mortis rumpe retia.

Intendentes tuae laudi
nos attende, nos exaudi,
nos a morte libera.

Que post Christum prima sedes,
inter Christi coheredes

Christo nos adnumera.

Iesu, mitis et benigne,
cuius nomen est insigne,
dulce, salutiferum,

munus nobis da salutis,

in defectu constitutis,

plenitude munerum.

Pater, fili, consolator,

unus Deus, unus dator

multiformis gratiae,

solo nutu pietatis,

fac nos simplae trinitatis

post spem frui specie.

O Mary, Star of the Sea, with your only love, with an eye of mercy, vouchsafe to watch over us, do not hesitate to help us in the shipwrecked world. In this vale of tears, nothing sweet, nothing dear, all things are suspect, what can be safe, when not even the triumph of the virtues is certain?  The flesh stands against us, the flesh is aided by the world in our destruction.  The threating enemy stands against us, now revealing himself openly, now concealing his rage. We sin and are punished, we are caught in the various traps of the hunters. O Mary, Mother of God, you are after God our greatest hope, you, our sweet refuge. So many and so great are the snares, which we are not strong enough to resist, neither by force or diligence. Consoler of the wretched, raiser of the dead, burst the snares of death.  Take heed of your praises, attend to us, hear us, deliver us from death. You, who after Christ among the heirs of Christ sit on the first throne, number us with Christ.  Jesus, gentle and good, whose name is great, sweet and saving, grant to us, who are set in weakness, the gift of salvation, the fullness of gifts. Father, Son, Consoler, one God, one giver of multiform gifts, by the favor of your love, after hope make us to enjoy the vision of the simple Trinity.

“Strophes 3 to 7 enumerate the woes of this vale ot tears. The weary tone of the recital is deepened by avowals of the emptiness and vanity of this world: nihil dulce, nihil carum; quid hic nobis erit tutum. Besides the uncertainty of earthly conditions, there is the deadly certainty of necessary combat with the flesh and the Old Enemy, graphically summarized in strophes 5 and 6. In strophe 7 the poet admits that we have not escaped this struggle unscathed:  we are sinners; we are liable to punishment; 'We are entangled in the nets of 0ur enemies. In strophe 8 the poet turns to Mary, Mother of God, our best hope after God. She is invoked by three of her titles which have special significance for poor human wayfarers in trouble: sweet refuge, consoler of the afflicted, and encourager of the faint-hearted. Prayers to her, asking her to break the death net, to deliver us from death, to number us among the heirs of Christ,  follow in strophes 10, 11, and 12. Here is repetition of nos and of the name of Christ, adding urgency to the prayer. The sequence closes with an address to Jesus, an appeal to His Holy Name, and a final prayer to the Blessed Trinity.

The tone of the sequence is set by the first two strophes, a succinct, direct plea for help, contrasting the Star of the Sea, in all her loveliness and lovableness, with us, trapped in a world going to ruin. The stanzas relating the dangers of the world are filled with strong, harsh- sounding, unpleasant words: suspecta, perniciem, 1nfestans, rabiem. We might even note the consonant sounds in strophes 3 to 7. Strophe 8 introduces the Virgin Mather of God, and some of her serenity 1s projected into the madcap world just presented. As invariably happens, Mary leads the troubled soul to Christ, first indirectly referred to in strophe 12--Christum, Christi, Christo-then directly addressed in the next "two strophes".

The last note is one of hope. The soul has passed through the waters of tribulation. Though the shipwreck metaphor is not carried through to the end, the whole sequence revolves about the soul overwhelmed in a sea of troubles, looking to the powerful Star of the Sea for aid.

A concrete evidence of the piety of the Middle Ages is the conventional plea to Christ or the Blessed Mother and the saints honored in a sequence to "unite us to the blessed."  'This ending was as common as the customary as the  beginning address to the muses in pagan classical poetry. All the saints, but especially, the Blessed Virgin, are presented as models to be imitated, friends to be admired and loved, and above all, friends who have the power to help us attain the goal they reached".