The Hail Mary Explained
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Not too long ago, I was approached by an Evangelical neighbor who challenged the Hail Mary, a traditional Roman Catholic prayer, as worship of Mary, and therefore unfit as Christian prayer. I told my neighbor that I appreciated his concern for my spiritual well-being (I sincerely did) and proceeded to explain what the Hail Mary really is. The prayer in its entirety:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
The prayer is written in two parts: the first two sentences are from Luke's gospel reminding us who Mary is. The passages cited below are from the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition.
Luke 1:28 - And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
Luke 1:42 - And [Elizabeth] cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
The second part is a petition to pray for us here on Earth. Although much-maligned throughout history, the Hail Mary is really no different from asking a friend to pray for you. Now while my Protestant brethren and I may disagree on whether those in heaven can pray for us here on Earth, we can certainly agree that quoting two verses from the Bible and asking someone to pray for us does not constitute worship.
Prayers to other saints are the same thing. When we pray to the saints, we are asking them to either to pray for us, or to intercede on our behalf by the power of God. We do not believe that Mary or the other saints have any power separate from God. It is pleasing to God when we pray for each other and so it is appropriate to ask each other for prayers, and appropriate to worship only One True God.
God Bless.
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Tony,
My dad, a Methodist lay leader, says his little country church actually has this book, so I will give it a read!
My biggests epiphany on the rosary actually came from classes on Eastern-style meditation. I realized that the "OM" that people chant in group meditation was akin to the group repetition of the Hail Mary. Instead of self as the focus of the meditation, the focus was on the life of Christ.
It's amazing how many places inspiration can come from. Thanks for introducing another possibility!
Nice Hub Specificity, well explained. I really like tonymac04's comment too. Before I deleted Paltalk voice chat off my computer I used to go to a couple of Rosary rooms every day and usually led the Rosary in one of them. It was so cool when non-Catholics came to pray the Rosary with us. I know they got special prayers from more than just this member of our group. I miss those days but I haven't found a good voice chat software that doesn't effect your computer in a negative way. If you know of one I'd join. By the way, I'm not sure how true it is but I have read that both Martin Luther and John Calvin prayed the Rosary until they died.
God bless
Mike
Thanks for the compliment, Money! From what I know of John Calvin, I doubt he prayed the rosary at all (I'll have to research that), but it is quite true that Martin Luther had a lifelong and treasured devotion to the Blessed Virgin and used the Rosary to meditate on the life of Christ.
If I run across decent voice chat software, I'll let you know, but most of it screws up my network.
Please call me Mike, I picked the stupid name of Make Money because that is why I originally joined HubPages but it's not working for me. I hope you continue to post in the Religion forum here cause I think I've been the only practicing Catholic that does. You need a thick skin but I think I'm getting through to some.
Mike
I just discovered this beautiful hub.What a revelation!I have never heard the Hail Mary explained so well.
This hub explains very clearly and effectively this subject of why Catholics do Hail Mary. I'm not Catholic, but I like many of their practices. I think I may start praying for intercessory prayers to the saints and Mary. Maybe you or someone could write a hub about the saints, who they are, how to pray to them, etc.
The Hail Mary is the most powerful prayer ever said on the lips and in the minds of lay people.
tonymac04 3 years ago
The Rosary is meaningful not only to Catholics, by the way. A very fine book on the Rosary was written some years ago by Methodist minister J Neville Ward called "Five for Sorrow Tne for Joy" which is a beautiful exposition of the Rosary prayers and why they can be so meaningful as aids to meditation.
Thanks for this interesting Hub.
Love and peace
Tony