July 21, 2024 - Pastor Message
November 21, 2024THE CATHOLIC TREASURY OF PRAYER
THE CATHOLIC TREASURY OF PRAYER
THE HAIL MARY
“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).
We continue our reflection on the treasury of Catholic prayers that we all know and love by looking at the Hail Mary. Similar to the Lord’s Prayer, the origins of the Hail Mary can be found in Scripture, particularly the Gospel of Luke. There we find the angel, Gabriel, greeting Mary to announce the coming of Christ with the words we use to begin the prayer: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Mary’s name was added in the prayer to clarify to whom the greeting is addressed, which is obvious by the context in the gospel passage but is not obvious outside that context. The next clause, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus” (Luke 1:43), comes from Elizabeth’s greeting when Mary visits her and shares the good news of Christ’s coming with her. Again, the name of Jesus is added to clarify who the fruit of Mary’s womb is, which is omitted in the gospel passage.
These two clauses formed the whole prayer when it was first offered by the Christian faithful during Mass as early as the 6th Century. Monks popularized the prayer as a private devotion around the 11th Century, and it was officially recommended to the faithful by the Church in the late 12th, early 13th Century. Frequent objections to the prayer criticized it for not including a petition, or prayer asking for something. This was rectified by various attempts to add a petition in the 14th and 15th Centuries. The petition, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,” was added in the 16th Century, largely as a response to the Protestant reformers, who attacked the Church’s teachings on Mary, and the prayer was made official as we know it today in the Catechism of the Council of Trent.
While its separate pieces slowly came together as a single prayer through a process that spanned centuries and involved countless people, there is a providential wholeness and cohesion to the prayer that expresses in one brief statement our faith regarding Mary and her uniquely blessed role in salvation, which affects us all but also each one of us individually, who, as disciples of Christ, have been entrusted to Mary’s care by Jesus (John 19:27). Most likely this is due to the prayer’s divine origins in the Word of God, as if God himself intends for us to pray it. That being so, we would do well to include the prayer as a regular part of our own spiritual life. I certainly encourage you to do so as we continue our reflection on the Hail Mary next week by diving into the meaning of each part. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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