An Argument from Unbroken Record

The Memorare is structured as a piece of rhetorical argument rather than simple petition: it opens by asking Mary to remember that never was it known that anyone who sought her protection was left unaided, and only after establishing this claimed historical record does it move to the actual request, that she hear and answer the one now praying despite their sins. This argument-from-precedent structure, appealing to a pattern of past reliability before making a present request, is a device more commonly associated with legal or rhetorical persuasion than with devotional prayer, which is part of why the Memorare has attracted particular attention from scholars studying the rhetorical techniques of Catholic Marian devotion. Its actual authorship remains unknown despite frequently being attributed to the seventeenth-century French priest Claude Bernard, sometimes called the 'poor priest,' who is now understood by most historians to have popularized an already-existing prayer rather than composed it himself, a pattern of misattribution to a well-known promoter that recurs with several Catholic devotional prayers of uncertain original authorship. Its Latin opening word, memorare, meaning 'remember,' gives the prayer its name and signals from the very first word the argument-from-memory structure the rest of the text develops.