Greetings in the Name of the Lord, 

A little while ago I used this space to offer some suggestions for praying at family gatherings. I am hoping to offer regular reflections on prayer here in this space, knowing that prayer is a crucial element of a meaningful spiritual life. Today I wanted to take a little time to dig into a specific prayer highly familiar to Roman Catholics, but usually not Protestants: The Hail Mary.

During our Advent bible study some discussion around Mary led to curiosity around the Hail Mary. In hopes of encouraging curiosity as much as possible, I did a little digging into the origin and history of the prayer, and thought I would share some of that with you, along with the basics of how the Hail Mary is used and what it could mean to your own prayer life. 

We can start with the most common version of the prayer in english, remembering that the original version is in latin (where it is known as Ave Maria, yes, that Ave Maria) which can result in slight variations in English versions: 

Although the prayer certainly echoes of the Old Testament, specifically an interaction between Ruth and Boaz as well as language of the prophet Malachi and a few Psalms, the origin of this prayer as we read it comes from Elizabeth (the Mother of John the Baptist) greeting her relative Mary while she is pregnant with the baby Jesus in Luke 1:42. The earliest versions of the prayer would have just included Elizabeth's words, which is only the first half of the present day version. The earliest forms of the Christian Church, probably back to before they called themselves Christians, could very well have used the "Songs" of Luke (there is a Song of Zachariah, this one from Elizabeth as well as the Magnificat) in early worship, and it may be the very reason they appear in Luke in the first place, as he may have endeavored to include some of the liturgies of the early church.  I say "could have" because we know very very little about the early church and how they worshipped. Regardless, some studies have concluded that only the first half of the prayer, the biblical part, is seen in any liturgies before the 16th century. To be fair, studies have had hard time finding any use of it as a standardized prayer at all (first half or otherwise) before 1000, meaning it may not have been used by the early church at all.

At some point in the 16th Century, the second half was added, and no one is quite sure exactly how that happened. However it was extended, it ended up becoming an incredibly important prayer within Roman Catholicism. Its importance did not extend to Protestant churches though. Part of the Protestants' heistance probably lies in the fact that the prayer appears to be directed to Mary, not to a member of the Holy Trinity, and early Calvinists probably saw this as idolatrous and blasphemous, similarly to how early Calvinists felt about veneration of the Saints, and praying to specific saints instead of the Trinity. But, if you really break the prayer down, it is not so much about praying to Mary but rather praying with Mary, seeing her as a partner in the spiritual path. I think this is a fairly easy distinction to make and believe the early Calvinists over-reacted by dismissing this powerful biblically based prayer. 

The Hail Mary is a major part of praying the rosary, which is a practice that uses a set of beads, known as a rosary. Rosary beads contain two different sized beads with a number of little beads separating the larger ones.  Holding the beads, the one praying says a prayer as they hold a bead and then move on the next bead and the next and so on.  For each of the smaller beads the Hail Mary is said, and for each of the larger beads, the Lord's prayer is said.  To be fair, there is also a cross as well as a center connecting piece and those traditionally have their own prayers, but typically I treat those like big beads and do the Lord's Prayer when I reach those. I have also been taught some other more complicated versions of the rosary, but even this simplified version is pretty meaningful as a practice, so we will stick to that for our purposes here. 

The beauty of the Hail Mary is that it is relatively short, and you will most likely have it memorized within one recitation of a whole rosary. The repetitiveness of the prayer really helps with centering in the words, and at least for me, the words are quite humbling when repeated over and over again.  Breaking it up with the Lord's Prayer helps give some context to that prayer and I find that it has the ability to hit a little deeper in the midst of a rosary.  

The challenge with doing a rosary is fighting the instinct to want to rush through it as fast as possible. I say this because it is the length of the prayer practice that really gives it its greatest strength, as the longer one does it the more one can let go and more deeply encounter God. With this in mind I believe slowing down and savoring the words of the prayers really deepens a sense of the divine.   

I encourage you to give this prayer practice a shot remembering the Hail Mary is praying with Mary, not praying to her, she is a partner with us, with powerful life experience. Engaging in the Rosary can have powerful spiritual impact, often unexpected ones. If you do give it a shot, let me know and we can talk about it and your experiences with it, it is one of my great joys as your pastor to learn about how different spiritual practices impact your life.

In Peace, Mike