Pope Francis and Our Lady Undoer of Knots

Before March 13, 2013, the day Pope Francis was elected Supreme Pontiff, very few people outside of Argentina or Germany had ever heard of the devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. But it is one of His Holiness’ favorite devotions, one he has promoted for decades and one which deserves to be known by all Christians of goodwill.

Some think the devotion began in Augsburg, Germany, or that it began with a couple that was on the verge of divorce.

Technically, however, the devotion has its roots in the words of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who wrote in the second century that “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith” (Adversus Haereses, 3, 22).

Fast forward to Ingolstadt, Germany, in 1612 and that struggling married couple. Named Wolfgang and Sophia (née Rentz or Imhoff) Langenmantel, they went to a local priest Fr. Jakob Rem, S.J., and explained their plight.

Father asked to see their wedding ribbon. In the past, there was something called the handfasting ceremony. This involved joining the couple’s right hands during the marriage ceremony with a ribbon symbolizing their unity. This ceremony gave rise to the saying, “to tie the knot.”

Taking the wedding ribbon, he bound the two spouses together, and together they asked the Blessed Mother to undo the knots that were keeping the couple’s marriage from being a successful one in Christ. Before his church’s “Mother Thrice Admirable” image, he prayed, “In this religious act, I raise the bonds of matrimony, to untie all knots and smoothen them.”

Directly thereafter, under Fr. Rem’s direction, Wolfgang made a pilgrimage over four successive weekends to one of the several monasteries near Ingolstadt. Upon arriving, he would repeat the prayer asking Our Lady to heal his marriage with Sophie. And things did get better so much so that the couple remained together the rest of their lives, and the accuser Satan was thwarted.

In gratitude for his grandparents staying together, their descendent Hieronymus Ambrosius von Langenmantel entered the priesthood. He was assigned to the Church of St. Peter am Perlach (aka, Perlachkirche) and commissioned an artist to create the image of Mary, Untier of Knots (Maria Knotenlöserin in German). If you look at the image, you’ll see many explicit references to Our Lady from Rev. 12:1-6.

Below her are two walking figures, Tobias and the archangel Raphael traveling to meet Tobias’ future wife Sarah, another marriage that needed some knots untied.

Many accounts of this story have Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio traveling to Augsburg while in Germany for his doctoral studies and seeing the painting then. However, in a 2017 interview, he said he had never traveled to that city.

Instead, what happened is that a woman religious he had met while in Germany sent him a Christmas card that had the image of Our Lady, Undoer of Knots on it.

Beguiled by it, Fr. Bergoglio began promoting the image and the devotion. He started sending postcards bearing the picture. According to Catholic News Agency, replicas “of the image were painted in the pope’s home country, Argentina, and devotion there spread.” The Iglesia de San José del Tala became the Santuario Nuestra Señora Desatadora de Nudos (Shrine of Our Lady, Undoers of Knots). “Once Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots spread throughout the world.”

According to an article on the website of the National Institutes of Health, “On the fifteenth anniversary of the enthronement of the image at the shrine, Cardinal Bergoglio affirmed in his homily: ‘We all have knots or deficiencies in our hearts, and we go through difficulties. God, our good Father, who distributes his grace to all of his children, wants us to trust her, to entrust to her the knots of our sins, the tangles of our miseries that prevent us from uniting ourselves with God, to allow her to untie them and bring us to Her son Jesus.’”

We may not face divorce like the Langenmantels, but we all have knots that need undoing in our lives. Whether it’s something relatively simple such as problems with bills, our children or our coworkers, or something much more serious such as substance abuse, we can draw on Our Lady Undoer of Knots to help us with these and all our needs.

Prayer to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots

Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exist in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exists in my life. You know very well how desperate I am, my pain, and how I am bound by these knots. Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life. No one, not even the evil one himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone. Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with Your Son and My Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot.

[Mention your request here]

I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all. You are my hope.

O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution, and, with Christ, the freedom from my chains.

Hear my plea.

Keep me, guide me, protect me, O safe refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me.

Amen.