Regina Caeli, by Gregor Aichinger (Easter Music)

Regina Caeli by Gregor Aichinger

The Regina Caeli (“Queen of Heaven”) is a prayer that we closely associate with Easter. We usually recite this prayer instead of the Angelus during the Easter Season. At this time it also serves as the Marian Antiphon at the end of Compline (Night Prayer). Numerous composers have set it to music over the centuries. Among these are Mozart, Brahms, Byrd, Victoria, and more. I posted a piece a few works ago on an aria by opera composer Pietro Mascagni. Here the Regina Caeli is the lead-in for Mascagni’s Easter aria.

Gregor Aichinger (1565-1628) composed the beautiful musical setting for the Regina Caeli below. The Zürcher Sing-Akademie brings his setting to vibrant life. You can find a brief article about the prayer itself below the clip.

The Music:

I have posted the prayer in both English and Latin below (the clip itself has subtitles in Latin and German).

Featured image top of page: Coronation of Mary by Diego Velasquez, c.1636

The Prayer Regina Caeli

The prayer Regina Caeli itself is of ancient origin.  Our oldest record of it comes from the twelfth century, but the website ourcatholicprayers.com tells us:

According to The Golden Legend, a famous 13th century work about the saints, Pope St. Gregory the Great heard angels singing the first three verses from the Regina Caeli during a procession in the 6th century and was inspired to add the fourth line “Ora pro nobis deum” (“pray for to us to God” in Latin). Although this story is itself considered to be a legend, it is, as Father Herbert Thurston once put it in his book Familiar Prayers, “inseparably associated with the Regina Caeli.”

It serves as the Marian Antiphon at the end of Compline (Night Prayer) during the Easter Season. The Regina Caeli also plays another role. During this liturgical season it also takes the place of the Angelus 3 times a day. We don’t really know who composed the prayer or when. As we note above, there is a tradition that Pope St. Gregory the Great composed the last verse. In any case, the first written mention of it dates to the 12th century.

An Easter Prayer

It’s easy to see why this is the antiphon for the Easter Season – it culminates in the Resurrection of Jesus, and each line ends with a joyous “Alleluia!” At the same time, it packs a lot of other things into four short little lines.

Let’s start with the first line:  

Regina Caeli, laetare, alleluia

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia

We address the Blessed Mother in her glorified state as Queen of Heaven, but the next line takes us back to the beginning:

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia

The Son you merited to bear, alleluia

Literally, “because he whom you merited to carry.” That takes us back to the Annunciation, the Incarnation, and the Nativity.  I don’t know why the official Catholic translation now includes the word “Son.”  It’s pretty clear who we’re talking about.  In any case, that brings us to the third line:

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia

Has risen as he said, alleluia

So there it is, in the first word: “has risen again, Resurrexit.”  The next two words, sicut dixit, “just as He said,” remind us not only of Jesus’ words in the Gospels, but also the testimony of all the rest of the Holy Scriptures.  Jesus is the Eternal Word, and all Scripture ultmately derives from Him.

In the last line we ask the Blessed Mother to intercede for us, as we always do in Marian prayers

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia

Pray to God for us, alleluia

The Queen Mother

Whether or not Pope Gregory the Great added that last line, the first reference we find to the Regina Caeli comes about five hundred years after his time.  Whatever the case may be, the closing represents a change in focus.  In a sense, we can think of it as the heart of the prayer, and the first three as the prelude: because Mary is the Queen of Heaven, and because her son is the Eternal Word Made Flesh, Resurrected, and enthroned in glory, it’s appropriate to ask for her prayers.  As in the Davidic kingdom, the Queen Mother is the best advocate one could possibly have when approaching the throne of the King.

One last detail, on spelling:  sometimes you might see the Regina Coeli, with an “oe” instead of “ae.”  That’s an alternate spelling that became popular in the Middle Ages.  In the second half of the twentieth century when going back to the sources was more fashionable the spellings were standardized to agree with Classical Latin, where the spelling was always “ae.”