August 4, 2024 - Pastor Message
December 21, 2024THE CATHOLIC TREASURY OF PRAYER
THE CATHOLIC TREASURY OF PRAYER
THE HAIL MARY (conc.)
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
The third and final verse of the Hail Mary is the only one not quoted from Scripture and was the last part to be added. The original Hail Mary simply consisted of the two verses taken from Scripture. Sometime in the late Middle Ages, people began the practice of adding a personal petition at the end of the Hail Mary, which took a variety of forms. The prayer as we know it today was finally standardized in the Catechism of the Council of Trent in 1566 in response to attacks against the Church’s Marian teachings by Protestant Reformers. The council fathers explain the meaning of the third verse thus:
“To this form of thanksgiving the Church of God has wisely added prayers and an invocation addressed to the most holy Mother of God, by which we piously and humbly fly to her patronage, in order that, by her intercession, she may reconcile God to us sinners and may obtain for us those blessings which we stand in need of in this life and in the life to come. We, therefore, exiled children of Eve, who dwell in this vale of tears, should constantly beseech the Mother of mercy, the advocate of the faithful, to pray for us sinners. In this prayer we should earnestly implore her help and assistance; for that she possesses exalted merits with God, and that she is most desirous to assist us by her prayers, no one can doubt without impiety and wickedness” (http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/TheLordsPrayer.shtml).
The title “Mother of God” is an ancient title applied to Mary officially by the ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 AD as an affirmation that Jesus is the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity who assumed our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary and was born into the world to save us from sin and death. We then humbly acknowledge our need for Mary’s prayer as she is completely holy yet we are sinners, she is wholly united with God yet we are separated from God by our sin, she shares fully, body and soul, in her Son’s risen life in heaven, the goal toward which we are constantly at work in this life yet are so in need of her assistance to attain in the next. We make this entire petition in faith and trust that Mary, the Holy Mother of God, is our mother too, as disciples of her Son (John 19:26-27), who desires our salvation and ever prays for us, now and at the hour of our death. We can have no advocate greater than her.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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