The Hail Mary, like all of our prayers, is a template, a door into a rich theology. In the memorization of a prayer, we have the blueprint to unfold the deep mystery the prayer contains. We are unable to memorize books, but we can memorize prayers and these prayers lead us to the information contained within volumes of books. “Lex orandi, Lex credeni”; The law of prayer is the law of belief; as we pray, so we believe. We all know and have memorized what we pray, the Hail Mary, but do we know what the prayer tells us about Mary, about Jesus and about ourselves? A simple phrase to use is “Know Mary, Know Jesus. No Mary, No Jesus”. Mary should not be just be brought out during Christmas and maybe around Easter or Pentecost. She is not a footnote or an afterthought to the Gospel. There can sometimes be the misunderstanding that if we put too much on Mary then it will take away from Jesus. Mary should always be in our mind because the more we understand the beauty and mystery of Mary; the better we will understand the beauty and mystery of Jesus, her Son.
In the movie “We Were Soldiers,” Mel Gibson, the dad, is a Catholic married to a Protestant. In a scene at the beginning of the movie, one of the young daughters says that she wants to pray like mommy prays. He then says, “Ok, what do you want to pray for?” She says her intention and then Mel Gibson proceeds with the Hail Mary. We have vast amounts of formal prayers and informal prayers. The danger of informal prayer is that it can get off course and become fixated on self, our words, and our desires. The danger of formal prayer is that it can be prayed only with the mind and not with the heart. The advantage of formal prayer is that we are challenged to pray using the words of great saints, the Church and in the case of the Hail Mary, even the words of an angel. Spontaneous prayer from the heart is wonderful, but the solid foundation of written, formal, traditional prayers gives us the formula to dive deeper into the mystery of Christ.
The Hail Mary has developed over time. During Saint Thomas Aquinas’ time, there were three main parts to the Hail Mary, which is now, what we call the first part. “The Angel gave one part, namely: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women.’ The other part was given by Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, namely; ‘Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.’ The Church adds the third part, that is, ‘Mary,’ because the Angel did not say ‘Hail, Mary,’ but ‘Hail, full of grace.’”[i] We now have two main parts. The first part: Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee, blessed are thou among woman and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. The second part: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen. “The words ‘Mary’ and ‘Jesus’ were added by the Church to the first part, and the second part ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, etc.’ was added by the Church later.”[ii]
Can we trust the words of the Hail Mary? Who is the author? The first part comes from two trustworthy sources, an angel and a Saint. The Angel Gabriel says, “Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.” Saint Elizabeth says, “Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” If these words have come from the mouth of an angel and a Saint, we should be not only encouraged to say them as well, but also humbled that we are privileged to say these holy words. An angel is a messenger and can only speak the word of God, so we know that the words “Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee,” is from God. It says in the Gospel, “Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice.” The words “Blessed are you among woman and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” is also from God, because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit, the third person of God.
The name of Mary and Jesus inserted into the first part and the whole second part, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,” are given to us by the Church. The Church was given to us by Christ to lead us and guide us and therefore, the Church is trustworthy and has the authority. The Council of Trent gives us an explanation of why the Church added the second part. “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.”[iii]
What is at the center of the Hail Mary, the center of the two parts? Jesus! With the natural pauses of the Hail Mary prayer, the center is the Holy Name of Jesus. The Hail Mary is not just about Mary but it is about Jesus too. In the Magnificat, Mary says, “My Soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”[iv]Mary always points to Jesus. Jesus is the center of the Hail Mary because He is the center of all. Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and Man. “His [Christ’s] humanity is the first step down and the last step up on the beautiful spiral of Creation.”[v] If we look at the hierarchy of creation we see inanimate objects, plants, animals, humans and then angels. Jesus Christ is “begotten, not made, one in being with the Father.”[vi]. He is above creation but chooses to step down from heaven, onto the rung or level of humanity. He does this in order to pull humanity up to restore humanity to its original dignity. The opening prayer of the Mass on the Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter says, “God of mercy, you have filled us with the hope of resurrection by restoring man to his original dignity.”
Before the fall, man had an original dignity, an original holiness. What did humans lose in the garden? The mind became darkened, the will became weak. We lost sanctifying grace, the gift of bodily immortality, which means we must suffer and die; and the gift of integrity, which explains why we have disorderly passions.[vii] If we go back and take a look at the hierarchy of creation, we have the two steps for humanity, original dignity (pre-fall) and fallen humanity. Humanity, through the fall, took a step down away from God, away from heaven. This is why, when people are steeped in habitual sin, we say they are acting like animals. Some even have to be put in prison, like a cage to keep them from harming others. When someone is not doing what we ask, we might say, “stop acting like animals” or “stop the horseplay.” When someone is lazy, we might even refer to them as a couch potato or tell them that speaking to them is like speaking to a brick wall. If we want to degrade, belittle or strip someone of their dignity, we refer to them as something less than what they are. We take for granted that God took two steps down the hierarchy of creation to redeem us. Two steps down from human on the hierarchy of creation is a plant. Imagine if a human were to decide to become a tulip and place himself in the garden of the front yard. The human would have the nature of a tulip and would do what is natural to a tulip. Jesus loves us so much that “…he emptied himself taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance...”[viii]
Why did Jesus have to come from Mary? Jesus is both divine and human, and it only makes sense that He would clothe Himself in humanity in a way proper to the human nature. If He were to fall out of the sky, this would not be proper to the nature of humanity; if He were to sprout from the ground, this would be within the nature of a plant but not of a human. God becomes flesh, in the same manner that all of humanity became flesh, in a human womb and thus begins to restore humanity to its original dignity. The womb of Mary is blessed, because it is this womb that the Word will take on Flesh. The womb of Mary is the first area of humanity to be touched by God and thus restored. God will touch the womb of Mary and from that womb will “make all things new.”[ix] The flesh has been redeemed, made new, “so whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” Mary is the first of creation to be “in Christ” precisely because Christ is in her. Mary is the new (Eva), ushering in a new beginning. There is a complete restoration of the old to the new. Eva now becomes Ave. In the prayer Ave Maris Stella, we read “Taking that sweet Ave, which from Gabriel came, peace confirm within us, changing Eva’s name.”
Even though we are fallen, we have dignity and must remember our dignity and return to that dignity. “Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God.”[x]
Jesus becomes human to be at our level, and He not only wants to restore us to our original pre-fallen humanity but also wants to raise us even higher to divine life. Divine life is not human but rather super human, more than human. It is not according to the nature but is supernatural. This is why at the Easter Vigil we can proclaim, “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”[xi] During the Liturgy of the Eucharist at the preparation of the altar and the gifts, the priest prays “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”[xii] The priest prays this prayer as he puts a drop of water into the chalice of wine. The water symbolizes humanity, and the wine symbolizes divinity. What happens once the drop of water mixes with the chalice of wine? Can you distinguish the water from the wine? No. Christ wants for us a life that is not separated from Him but, rather, is in full communion.
We know how Jesus shared in our humanity. “He emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. He was known to be of human estate, and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross!”[xiii] How do we share in the nature of Jesus, the Divine Nature? Jesus is by nature what we are by grace. We can only share in the divine nature, the divine life, by Grace. “Grace is the participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body.”[xiv] How do we show that we are sharing in the Divine Nature? Some ways that we show we are sharing in the Divine Nature is through the Sacramental life, the pursuit of good and avoidance of evil, works of Mercy, living out the threefold mission of Christ (prophet, priest and king) and by the virtue of charity. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. “It is clear that the one loved is naturally in the mind of the one loving, and therefore whoever loves God has God in him…Even the nature of love is such that it transforms the lover into the beloved. Wherefore if we love evil and earthly things, we become sinful and restless. But if we love God, we become divine, or Godlike…”[xv] This is why Saint Augustine would say, “Love God and do what you will.” If we truly love God, we can do whatever we will because our will, will be united to the will of the Father and we can truly say, “Thy will be done.” We can echo the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary and say, “Be it done unto me according to Thy word.”
[i] The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas; The Angelic Salutation
[ii] The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas; The Angelic Salutation; footnote
[iii] Catechism of the Council of Trent; Prayer in General
[iv] Luke 1:46
[v] Fr. Christopher Rengers (source: quotecatholic.com)
[vi] Nicene Creed
[vii] Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. Basic Catholic Catechism Course, page 17
[viii] Liturgy of the Hours; Week II, Sunday Evening Prayer I, Canticle Philippians 2:6-11
[ix] Revelation 21:5
[x] Catechism of the Catholic Church - 1691
[xi] Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)
[xii] Order of the Mass; Preparation of the altar and the gifts
[xiii] Philippians 2:6-11
[xiv] Catechism of the Catholic Church - 1997
[xv] Saint Thomas Aquinas; Magnificat Vol. 13, No. 3 (May 4, 2011 Meditation of the Day)