Hi Everyone!

I am hearing some chatter about a line in tomorrow’s consecration prayer. The chatter is that people are thinking the line might be referring to the Andean deity “Pachamama.”

So, let’s back up these horses and see what’s going on here.

As is well-known now, the Holy Father announced that he going to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 2022. The text of this prayer has been released, a letter from the Pope as well, and the booklet that will be used during the service.

When we look at the English translation (presumably from the Italian), we find this text (bold text my emphases):

Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.
Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war.
Ark of the New Covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.
Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world.
Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness.
Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.
Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love.
Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity.
Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

Now, if we look at the Italian, here is what it says (bold text my emphases):

Accogli dunque, o Madre, questa nostra supplica.
Tu, stella del mare, non lasciarci naufragare nella tempesta della guerra.
Tu, arca della nuova alleanza, ispira progetti e vie di riconciliazione.
Tu, “terra del Cielo”, riporta la concordia di Dio nel mondo.
Estingui l’odio, placa la vendetta, insegnaci il perdono.
Liberaci dalla guerra, preserva il mondo dalla minaccia nucleare.
Regina del Rosario, ridesta in noi il bisogno di pregare e di amare.
Regina della famiglia umana, mostra ai popoli la via della fraternità.
Regina della pace, ottieni al mondo la pace.

The line in question is “Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world.”
In Italian, “Tu, ‘terra del Cielo”, riporta la concordia di Dio nel mondo.”

The English translation is not precise. “terra” does not mean “Queen.” It means “land” in this present context.

Unfortunately, the mistranslation has been picked up by some commenters and people are wondering if it is a reference to the Andean deity “Pachamama.”

The short answer is, no, it isn’t.

Referring to Our Lady as the “land of Heaven,” while a bit foreign to us in the English-speaking world, is actually quite theologically rich and deeply steeped in the history of Catholic thinking on Our Lady.

There are, I suspect, many different theological perspectives one can discuss to talk about the imagery of Our Lady as the “land of Heaven.” As I am more influenced by some Eastern theology and the writings of St. Louis de Montfort, I’d like to present some considerations from that angle.

In his True Devotion, St. Louis de Montfort says the following about Our Lady:

I declare with the saints: Mary is the earthly paradise of Jesus Christ the new Adam, where he became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish in her wonders beyond our understanding. She is the vast and divine world of God where unutterable marvels and beauties are to be found. She is the magnificence of the Almighty where he his his only Son, as in his own bosom, and with him everything that is most excellent and precious. What great and hidden things the all-powerful God has done for this wonderful creature, as she herself had to confess in spite of her great humility, “The Almighty has done great things for me”. The world does not know these things because it is incapable and unworthy of knowing them.
–St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion, paragraph 6.

In essence, the Blessed Virgin is the most exalted human after her Son, Jesus. Some theologians have even gone so far as to say that she is the repository of God’s grace, that in her, God was pleased to instill the highest virtues and graces. Such were these virtues and graces that He deigned that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity dwell within her womb. He whom the universe could not contain was in the womb of the Virgin.

The Eastern prayer, the Akathist to the Theotokos, expresses such mystery quite beautifully:

Rejoice, Thou through whom joy will shine forth:
Rejoice, Thou through whom the curse will cease!
Rejoice, recall of fallen Adam:
Rejoice, redemption of the tears of Eve!
Rejoice, height inaccessible to human thoughts:
Rejoice, depth undiscernible even for the eyes of angels!
Rejoice, for Thou art the throne of the King:
Rejoice, for Thou bearest Him Who beareth all!
Rejoice, star that causest the Sun to appear:
Rejoice, womb of the Divine Incarnation!
Rejoice, Thou through whom creation is renewed:
Rejoice, Thou through whom we worship the Creator!
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

Let me add that one should read the entire Akathist to get an even fuller sense of the high mysteries on Our Lady spoken in this prayer.

Cardinal Ravasi might help us to provide some understanding of what is going on here. Back in 2005 (long before “Pachamama” entered into popular Catholic parlance), he reflects upon Our Lady as “land of Heaven” in his Breviario laico, published by Mondadori:

Holy Mary, Mother of the Lord, your faith guides us. Turn your gaze to your children, land of heaven. The road is long and night falls upon us: intercede for us with Christ, the land of heaven.

In Jerusalem, pilgrims visit the only Gothic church that has remained intact: it is the basilica of St. Anna, built on the place where – according to tradition – the house of Joachim and Anna, the parents of Mary, was raised. Well, this temple occupied the area of ​​another Byzantine church, consecrated on September 8 of a year unknown to us. Thus it was that on this date the feast of the birth of Mary was placed, a solemnity dear to the Eastern Churches, introduced in the West in 701 by Sergius I, a pope of Syriac origins. It is, then, a Byzantine-Slavic Marian song that we turned to propose a prayer to all Christians devoted to the Mother of the Lord. There are two themes that emerge from the hymn. On the one hand, there is that suggestive definition of Mary as the “land of heaven”: in fact, she is the “sphere of creation into which God descends in a direct and explicit way. Apart from metaphor, it is the fruitful womb offered to humanity so that the Incarnation of the Word is fulfilled in our history. On the other side, there is the sweet trust of the faithful who fixes their gaze on this Mother who is the believer par excellence, as it is said in the first beatitude of the Gospels (“Blessed is she who believed”, exclaims Elizabeth in Luke 1:45). She takes us by the hand on this journey and leads us to her Son so that our souls may find peace and serenity. This exceptional female presence within the Christian faith is a sign of trust, sweetness and hope in the midst of the dryness of the world.

You can see the page in question here in Google Books.

Unfortunately, the rich beauty of Marian theology seems to be forgotten in the midst of some evil suspicions present today. Simply put, people need to do some homework before they make wild and irresponsible speculations in the public forum.

-Kevin

March 25, 2022 A.D. Update:

Someone notified me that there is even a reference to Our Lady as “land of Heaven” in the Latin tradition of hymns. The website Cantus has the following text, taken from the old July 15th liturgical feast of the Divisio Apostolorum (Sending Forth of the Apostles):

Caeli enarrant gloriam dei filii verbi incarnati facti de terra caeli |
Haec enim gloria soli domino est congrua |
Nomen est cujus magni consilii angelus |
Istud consilium lapso homini auxilium est antiquum et profundum
et verum factum solis tantum sanctis cognitum |
Cum angelus iste homo natus ex muliere immortalem
ex mortali de terra caelum fecit ex homine angelum |
Hic est dominus exercituum deus cujus sunt angeli missi in terram apostoli |
Quibus se ipsum vivum praebuit resurgens multis argumentis pacem victor mortis nuntians |
[….]

There is even a musical notation for the hymn (page 42). Ulysse Chevalier included the hymn in his 1984 book Poésie liturgique traditionnelle.

Pay attention to the parts in bold:
“Caeli enarrant gloriam dei filii verbi incarnati facti de terra caeli”
(The heavens declare the glory of the Son of God,
of the Incarnated Word, of the heaven made from earth)

“Cum angelus iste homo natus ex muliere immortalem
ex mortali de terra caelum fecit ex homine angelum”
(When that angel, born a man from a woman,
made the immortal one out of the mortal, heaven from earth, an angel out of man)*

We see in this hymn that the focus is upon Jesus. He is referred to as the “heaven made from earth” (facti de terra caeli). The “de terra” can refer here to the literal soil of the earth, hearkening back to the creation of Adam. Of course, we know that this was not quite the case as Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and not the literal soil of the ground.

In Mariology, there is a general principle that there is a close association or unity between Jesus and Mary. What is said about Christ affects Mary. Strengthened, then, by this principle, we can see that in the above hymn, there is a poetic and metaphorical sense that can be applied. Our Lady can be said to be the “land” or “soil” from which the humanity of the Word of God was made/fashioned.

Following closely on the heels of the above points, Dr. Kevin Clarke of California pointed out on Facebook a poignant text from St. Irenaeus of Lyon:

Because as by the disobedience of one man sin had entrance, and by sin death prevailed; so also by the Christ obedience of one man should righteousness be brought Son of in, and bear the fruit of life to those men who were long ago dead. And as that first-formed Adam had his substance of the rude and yet virgin Earth (for God had not yet rained and man had not tilled the earth) and was moulded by the Hand of God, i. e., by His Word (for all things were made by Him); and the Lord took clay from the earth, and moulded man: — so when the Word Himself, being of Mary who was yet a Virgin, was gathering into Himself what relates to Adam, it was meet that He should receive a birth suitable to this gathering up of Adam (Against Heresies, Book 3, chapter 21).

It seems very clear that there is more than ample evidence that referring to Our Lady as the “land of Heaven” has clear support within the Catholic tradition.

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*Translation courtesy of Michael McGrade in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Autumn, 1996, V. 49, n.3, page 403. I took the liberty of making a couple of changes.