Only then did I realize that it was a prayer. The strange thing is that when the message was finished, I never again needed to read this prayer. It was impressed upon my memory. I knew it and always prayed it. Each time, I heard the tone in which she said everything. Of course I cannot repeat it that way. No one can say it the way she did, so beautiful and impressive.”
Then the Lady continues her message, “Child, this is so simple and short that everyone can say it in one’s own language, before one’s own crucifix; and those who have no crucifix say it to themselves. This is the message which I want to give this very day, for I am now coming to say that I want to save souls” (Feb. 11, 1951).

On July 2, 1951, in a clear, short, and simple way, Our Lady explains the prayer, “‘Who once was Mary’ means: many people have known Mary as Mary. Now, however, in this new era which is about to begin, I wish to be the Lady of All Nations. Everyone understands this.” “Many people”, actually the majority of people from then and from now really only “have known Mary”, the mother of Jesus “as Mary” (July 2, 1951) and have called her thus. This has to be admitted. (Do not to forget, only one-sixth of all humanity is Christian!) Now, however, “in this new era which is about to begin” God wants all people to call Mary, not only by an unassociated name, but to accept and to learn to love her as their personal mother. They should, therefore, no longer call her just Mary but rather ‘my mother’, ‘our mother’ as she already said in the first message of Amsterdam, “They will call me ‘the Lady’, ‘Mother’” (March 25, 1945). However, when I say not only “Mary” but “Mother”, then something decisive changes through it in my personal relationship with her. Nevertheless, not everyone is satisfied with this simple explanation. Mary therefore describes in her 41st message, on the basis of Holy Scripture, how this ‘change’ from ‘Mary’ to the title ‘LADY OF ALL NATIONS’ came about. This reference to the gospel should be especially helpful for the theologians. (John 19:26 uses the word ‘Woman’. The Lady quotes it in explaining when she became ‘the Lady’. In Dutch the word ‘Vrouwe’ means both ‘Woman’ and ‘Lady’.) “Tell the following to the theologians: at the sacrifice of the Cross came ‘the Lady’. The Son said to His Mother, ‘Woman, behold your son.’ Thus the change came about at the sacrifice of the Cross. The Lord and Creator chose Miriam, or Mary, from among all women to become the Mother of His Divine Son. At the sacrifice of the Cross she became ‘the Lady,’ the Coredemptrix and Mediatrix. This was announced by the Son while He was returning to the Father. That is why I am bringing these new words in this time, and saying: I am the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary. Tell this to your theologians. This is what these words mean for the theologians” (April 6, 1952).

Nearly every one who hears or says this prayer for the first time stops for a moment in surprise and wonders, as did the visionary and her spiritual director, “But you have always been Mary, the same Mary now as you were then, and not anyone else!” Of course, we can always address Mary as “Mary”, like we repeat many times in the Hail Mary when we pray the Rosary. The LADY OF ALL NATIONS, however, wants to express in this wording that even her vocation wonderfully evolved. So we are always dealing with the same person, Mary. Now though, in Amsterdam, she “who once was Mary” has the desire, at the height of her coredeeming vocation, to be called ‘THE LADY, MOTHER OF ALL NATIONS’. For Mary too became in the course of her life something that she had not yet previously been. Through her FIAT she—the Immaculate Conception, the completely unknown and simple girl from Nazareth—became the Mother of the Divine Son. Through her suffering, united with the Redeemer, the Mother of Jesus also became the Lady, the Mother of All Nations and she wishes now in our time to be recognized and to be loved as such by all mankind. Everything depended on correspondence and faithful cooperation, even in Mary’s case! At this point it may be helpful to show with specific examples how someone, by collaborating with God’s grace and through suffering, matures into that what God has called him: “May the father and patron of the Church, who once was Joseph, be our intercessor!” It may be applied to a holy pope: “May Pope Pius X, who once was Giuseppe Sarto, intercede for us in heaven!” When the visionary herself understood better, she also made comparisons like the following to help others understand. Just as the little, playful girl Beatrix already had the vocation to one day become the Queen of the Netherlands, so too, Mary, who once lived as a hidden, simple little girl in the unknown town of Nazareth, became the Mother, the Lady of All Nations.

“You will go through a great deal yet, in this century” (May 31, 1955), Mary says. She promises, though, that if we pray her prayer, “degeneration, disaster and war may be staved off” (Oct. 11, 1953) and spiritual confusion may be conquered. She has been sent directly in our time as the Lady of All Nations so that “through this prayer, she may deliver the world from a great world catastrophe” (May 10, 1953). What great power this prayer has! Our Lady clearly describes the spiritual condition of our time, “Satan is still the prince of this world. He holds on to everything he can. … The Lady had to bring her prayer now over this satanic world. For the Holy Spirit is still to come over the peoples” (April 4, 1954). As the Lady of All Nations she is now sent “in order to expel Satan. … You, however, shall pray my prayer which I gave to the world” (May 31, 1955). This prayer is therefore a decisive weapon in the fight against Satan. Since you concretely pray that the Holy Spirit come now at this moment, Satan consequently must vanish here and now. We are not praying “vanish Satan!” like an exorcism or Pope Leo XIII’s prayer to St. Michael the Archangel: “…through the divine power of God, cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits…” Much more, the prayer of Amsterdam incites us to pray with all our heart, “Come Holy Spirit!” For our mother knows that where the Holy Spirit, who is Love, can be found, there is no place for demons, and she who “…stands as Advocate now in this anxious time” (cf. Dec. 31, 1951), “…will be allowed to bring peace to the world” (Oct. 11, 1953).

The Spreading

Like a missionary who wants to save all souls, Our Lady tells us already in her first apparition about her heart’s desire, “The prayer must be spread” (March 31, 1945).
For she knows the divine plan of redemption for humanity, “This prayer has been given for the redemption of the world. This prayer has been given for the conversion of the world” (Dec. 31, 1951), and therefore she asks us, “Then spread my prayer, the prayer of the Lord” (May 31, 1957).
She wants to give strength and power to all those who contribute to the spreading of the prayer, and she assures, “I shall help them” (Nov. 15, 1951). Ida is the first one charged with this task, “Do your work, and see to the outspreading” (Dec. 31, 1951). “Work for this alone, and give spiritual and bodily help by saying the prayer of the Lady of All Nations” (Feb. 17, 1952).

Once again, Our Lady uses an image of snowflakes to teach the visionary that this prayer should be prayed everywhere. “I see the globe rotating under her feet, and snowflakes are falling thickly everywhere. Then the Lady says, ‘Did you see this? The Lady of All Nations will be brought throughout the world in the same way, from town to town, from country to country. This simple prayer will create one community’” (Feb. 17, 1952). “I want this to be [prayed] in many languages” (March 4, 1951) and the prayer brought also “to those countries where faith has declined” (April 15, 1951), because “The Lady of All Nations is not destined for one country, for one place, but is destined for the world, the peoples” (Oct. 11, 1951). “They all have a right to it” (April 29, 1951). Thus the explicit desire of the Mother of All Nations is understandable, that this prayer “will have to be prayed in all churches” (Dec. 8, 1952). “This prayer shall be spread in churches and by modern means” (Dec. 31, 1951). Yes, the Christians “shall pray my prayer against degeneration, disaster and war, and bring it among all nations” (Oct. 11, 1953). Not least of all, the Lady of All Nations expects that those who spread the prayer do it rapidly, very seriously, and with great zeal, because after all they work “for this cause, which the Son wants to be realized” (April 29, 1951).

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Testimony about the Prayer

At the Third International Day of Prayer for Pentecost 1999, His Excellency Sooza Pakiam, Bishop of Trivandrum, India made an impressive speech. This nice example is an excerpt taken from it. “Today, the devotion to the Lady of All Nations is spreading in different parts of my diocese. I wonder how I myself came into this movement? What attracted me most was the prayer taught by Our Lady. It is a meaningful, short and profound prayer. It is essentially an invocation of the Holy Spirit. “Now it has been ten years since I was ordained a bishop. During these past ten years, I initiated a number of activities and introduced a series of renewal programs in my diocese. As a result of all these, we now have a beautiful structure appreciated by all. But today what I realize is this: the greatest need of today is not structures and buildings, not methods and techniques, not machinery and blue prints. All these, without the Holy Spirit, are nothing but dead bodies without a soul. That is why in her prayer the Lady of All Nations teaches us to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit of God may come upon and live in the hearts of all nations, that they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war. “For this reason, I wrote a pastoral letter and asked all my priests to learn this beautiful prayer by heart and to teach it to all their parishioners. I myself recite this prayer several times a day, because what we need today is not mainly new legislation, new theologies and new liturgies, but above all a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit may take our hearts of stone and give us a heart of flesh. (Cf. Ezek 36:26-27)… “May the veneration of Mary as the Lady of All Nations inspire each and every one of us and all of humanity to imitate the example of Mary’s total surrender to God who “casts the mighty from the throne and exalts the lowly …”(Lk 1:52)

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The Prayer in Various Languages

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Source
Fr. Paul Maria Sigl: "Die Frau aller Völker 'Miterlöserin Mittlerin Fürsprecherin'" (March 25, 1998)