‘Queen of Heaven, Rejoice, Alleluia!’, by Joseph Pronechen

By Joseph Pronechen, EWTN News, May 16, 2021

Joseph Pronechen Joseph Pronechen is staff writer with the National Catholic Register since 2005 and before that a regular correspondent for the paper. …

“Queen of Heaven, Rejoice, Alleluia!” begins the Regina Caeli, which the Church prays or sings in place of the Angelus during the Easter season. Mothers sing this prayer as a lullaby or teach it to their children. And families pray it together, too.

As the story goes, this Marian prayer was taught by angels to a pope.

Best-selling author Father Edward Looney of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, sees a recovery or renewal of the Regina Caeli “especially during the pandemic,” he said, “because the story of the Regina Caeli comes out of a pandemic of long ago, when St. Gregory the Great was the Holy Father. The COVID-19 situation, beginning last year, was beneficial in rediscovering it. Gregory had a vision and heard the angels singing the Marian antiphon. In effect, it was divinely inspired.” ….