How to pray to “Mary Undoer of Knots”

Thanks to the many testimonials of answered prayers, we know that people pray the novena to Mary Undoer of Knots for all these reasons: for themselves, in an emergency, for a family member, or for a friend.

But it can also be offered for problems affecting the whole world, as Pope Francis invited us to do in 2021 when he launched an international prayer marathon for the end of the coronavirus pandemic. The Pope actually placed this prayer marathon under the special patronage of the Virgin Mary Undoer of Knots, and its culmination was the solemn coronation of Mary Undoer of Knots.

It is therefore important to understand what knots are, what types of knots there are, and how we can pray to the Virgin Mary under this title.

In his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia, dated December 2, 1984, Pope John Paul II spoke of current "wounds", which can be individual or collective, and analyzed their origin.

"However disturbing these divisions may seem at first sight, it is only by a careful examination that one can detect their root: It is to be found in a wound in man's inmost self. In the light of faith we call it sin: beginning with original sin, which all of us bear from birth as an inheritance from our first parents, to the sin which each one of us commits when we abuse our own freedom. (1) "

A "knot" is not a synonym of sin: sin involves our responsibility and the assent of the will, whereas a "knot" is a more general term used to describe a situation permitted by God for our spiritual growth.

In the story of the blind man (Jn 9:1-12), Jesus answers a question from his disciples: "As Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'It was not that he or his parents sinned; but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.'"

Jesus therefore explained that the blindness wasn’t the man’s fault: he didn’t have congenital blindness because he or his parents had sinned. This example helps us to differentiate between a sin and a knot, even if the two sometimes coincide or one is the result of the other.

Isabelle Rolland, Marie qui défait les nœuds : d'un miracle conjugal à une dévotion universelle (Mary Undoer of Knots: from a marital miracle to a universal devotion). Paris, MDN productions, 2022

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