Hail Mary, full of grace.

You might associate the Hail Mary with Rome. This isn’t a terrible association being that nowadays the “staple prayer” of Roman Catholicism is the Hail Mary. The current form of the Hail Mary is not the original Hail Mary though! The original form of the Ave Maria is straight from scripture. If you are accustomed to the modern Hail Mary, the traditional (pre-trent) Hail Mary is the first half of the modern one. The original Hail Mary goes as such,

“Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

There are two direct quotes from scripture in the original Hail Mary. The first direct quote comes straight from the Archangel Gabriel!

”And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” (Luke 1:28 KJV)

The second part is from Saint Elizabeth. Whenever the Blessed Virgin Mary visited her cousin she was filled with the Holy Spirit and Saint John (within her womb) lept! This is what the Word tells us about this interaction.

“And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” (Luke 1:41-42 KJV)

This form of the Hail Mary was the one used by Saint Martin Luther. He said this on the Hail Mary,

”Our prayer should include the Mother of God.. What the Hail Mary says is that all glory should be given to God, using these words: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ. Amen!’ You see that these words are not concerned with prayer but purely with giving praise and honor.. We can use the Hail Mary as a meditation in which we recite what grace God has given her. Second, we should add a wish that everyone may know and respect her...He who has no faith is advised to refrain from saying the Hail Mary.” (Personal Prayer Book, 1522)

With all of this understood we have to look at the form of the Rosary that Martin Luther used. The Rosary was a tradition during the time of Martin Luther but like we’ve already addressed, it was not the same as the modern Roman Rosary. The original Rosary was made up of the Our Father (or the Lord’s Prayer) and the Hail Mary. Louis De Montfort says this in his book on the Rosary,

”Vocal prayer consists in saying fifteen decades of the Hail Mary, each decade headed by an Our Father,” (The Secret of the Rosary, Louis De Montfort)

Now, I do not agree with ninety-nine percent of what Louis De Montfort says in this book. The reason of this is because he is working under a post reformation era. His Rosary is not the pure quoting of scripture to honor Mary and meditate on her and her son’s life. During the time of Louis De Montfort and continuing today the Roman Rosary has morphed into a tool to gain indulgences. But the book does show us that even in the seventeenth century, the rosary was made up of two phrases. So we can understand that the Rosary used by Saint Martin Luther was most likely made up of the our Father and the Hail Mary as well. Now that we have the preliminaries in place and we know what I am addressing whenever I address the Rosary Martin Luther used, what is the beauty of this devotion? One major thing that I’ve found whenever using the Ave Maria supported by St. Martin Luther is the understanding of the inner dialogue of Mary. It is simple to imagine that while Jesus was preaching she was sitting and watching. Staring into His eyes she could not help but think of the event that started it all. This event of course is the annunciation where the words where spoken to her, “Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee!” We know Mary pondered things in her heart, Saint Luke clearly writes about it many times in His gospel. We see such talks of Mary’s heart in Luke 2:19, Luke 1:29, and Luke 2:51! So whenever we use the Hail Mary of Martin Luther’s time we are not begging Mary to pray for us, but following in her footsteps. We are meditating, pondering, treasuring the mysteries of the gospel, always going back to the beginning of it all with these amazing words to a simple woman in Nazareth…

“Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”