Our Lady of Expectation
For the mother counting weeks and days — and for everyone who loves her and waits with her.
On December 18, a week before Christmas, the Church keeps one of its oldest Marian feasts: the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, instituted at the Tenth Council of Toledo in the year 656 and still honoured in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland. She is shown as she was in those last days before Bethlehem — great with child, one hand resting on the Son she carried, waiting in faith for the hour God had set.
Because she waited as every expectant mother waits, she became their patroness. For centuries, mothers close to their time came to her early Mass on December 18 to honour her maternity and to ask her blessing on their own — for protection in pregnancy, for courage, and for a safe delivery. Those who hope to conceive pray to her too: no one understands a hope that has not yet been answered better than the Mother who carried hers for nine months.
Why She Belongs at This Shrine
Waiting is its own kind of urgency. An expectant mother carries a date she did not choose and cannot move, and love and fear grow together as it comes near. That is Saint Expedite’s ground too — the need that cannot wait — and devotees have always brought him their family’s most urgent hopes. So pray to both: to Our Lady of Expectation, who knows the waiting from inside, and to Saint Expedite, to hurry heaven’s help to mother and child. Pray her prayer first. Then pray his classic prayer below, just as you would for any urgent cause.
The Prayer
Name the mother and child where the prayer leaves room for them:
Prayer to Our Lady of Expectation
O Mary, Our Lady of Expectation, you carried the Son of God beneath your heart and awaited His birth in faith and quiet joy. Look with a mother’s tenderness on all who are expecting a child. Keep mother and baby in your care through every month of waiting; calm every fear that rises in the night; and when the hour comes, be near — as you were at Bethlehem — and ask your Son to grant a safe delivery and a healthy child.
(Here, name the mother and the child you are praying for.)
And for those who long for a child and still wait, hold their hope gently, and do not let it die. Our Lady of Expectation, pray for us. Amen.
Many devotees pray this prayer through the last nine days before a birth — or through the nine days before her feast, December 10 to 18. Prayer accompanies a mother; it never replaces the care of her doctors and midwives, and this shrine promises nothing but prayer.
Then Pray the Classic Prayer
Prayer to Saint Expedite for Urgent Help
Saint Expedite, you lay in rest.
I come to you and ask that this wish be granted.
(Here, clearly express what you want, and ask him to find a way to get it to you.)
Expedite now what I ask of you.
Expedite now what I want of you, this very second.
Don’t waste another day.
Grant me what I ask for.
I know your power, I know you because of your work.
I know you can help me.
Do this for me and I will spread your name with love and honor
so that it will be invoked again and again.
Expedite this wish with speed, love, honor, and goodness.
Glory to you, Saint Expedite!
Light a Candle for the Child You Await
Light a free virtual candle in the shrine’s chapel for the mother and child you carry in your heart — a small light for the waiting, lit by someone who loves them both.
Light a free candle for your most urgent need. And think of someone in your family, or in your circle, who could use a candle too — and light one for them as well.
— Keeper of the Shrine
More prayers are on the prayers page, including Mary, Undoer of Knots and a prayer for healing for the needs that come with illness and fear.