---
title: But You Can’t Just Improve Something That’s 450 Years Old – Or Can You?
description: But You Can’t Just Improve Something That’s 450 Years Old – Or Can You?
---

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# [But You Can’t Just Improve Something That’s 450 Years Old – Or Can You?](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/but-you-cant-just-improve-something-thats-450-years-old-or-can-you)

 Written by [Mike Brown](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/author/mike-brown) | May 30, 2008 10:00:00 AM

<https://www.brainzooming.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/081213-Our-Lady-of-Perpetua-May-25-2022-01-32-17-36-PM.jpg>I was saying the [“Hail Mary”](http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/mary3.htm) aloud with a relatively new convert to Catholicism. It’s a common prayer among Catholics that asks for the intercession of [Mary](http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/marymenu.htm). The prayer ends with the line, “pray for us sinners NOW AND AT the hour of (our) death.” This particular part was [added in the mid 1500’s](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07110b.htm).

We had just finished the prayer when she announced, “That’s not how I say it.”

For whatever reason, when learning the prayer through hearing it, she understood the final line as, “pray for us sinners, NOW UNTIL the hour of (our) death.” While I shared the “correct” words (which she subsequently verified in a prayer book because she didn’t believe me), on the surface, her wording is much more comforting. Having someone pray for you from “now until,” adds up to a lot more praying on your behalf than “now and at” which, strictly defined, translates into two prayers.

So here’s an interesting situation - every Catholic for the past 450 years has learned a common prayer one way, but a single person, through a misunderstanding, has created a unique version that seems better than the original.

Not sure what to do about this (especially since we missed getting this information to the [Pope when he was in the U.S. recently](http://ncrcafe.org/node/1802)), other than to offer this suggestion: just because something has stood the test of time doesn’t mean that a fortunate mistake couldn’t improve it.

[View full post](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/but-you-cant-just-improve-something-thats-450-years-old-or-can-you)

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