First things first. The actual “Ave Maria” prayer in Roman Catholic liturgy is as follows:
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.
Which translates as:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death.
Amen.
This brief prayer is drawn from three sources, two phrases from the Gospel of Luke and one from church tradition, so let’s look at those first. The first line is drawn from Luke 1:28, which I am going to quote from the lovely old King James Version including the two preceding verses::
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. 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.
This event is commonly called the Annunciation, the “announcement,” and it has provided rich fodder for many artists down through the centuries, including Leonardo da Vinci, whose gorgeous painting graces this post. In reality, as far as the actual Christmas story narrative, it’s the generating incident, the first event that sets everything else in motion. But, you may say, what is this “sixth month” business? Is it the sixth month of the Jewish calendar? If that were the case we’d have a much clearer idea of the time of year when Jesus was actually born, but in reality this numbered month doesn’t refer to a calendar at all but to another pregnancy, this one of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth. I’ll let Gabriel explain:
And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. (Luke 2:35-36)
So Mary goes to visit her cousin, whose pregnancy will result in the birth of John the Baptist, and it’s Elizabeth who helps out with the wording of our lyrics:
And [Elisabeth] spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 2:42-43)
You’ll notice that both Gabriel and Elizabeth say “Blessed art thou among women,” so the two passages overlap. Then Elizabeth says that Mary’s coming child is also blessed, adding the intriguing additional title for Mary: “the mother of my Lord.” Elizabeth recognizes the identity of Mary’s child, and so to call Mary “the mother of God” is perfectly accurate in biblical terms.
But now we get to the section of the “Ave Maria” that isn’t in Scripture but instead stems from later tradition. While Mary is praised in Luke’s Gospel as being specially chosen by God, there is no idea in these passages of her being prayed to or worshiped, and she is never called “holy.” Those ideas came several centuries later on in Church history, with the earliest printed version of the prayer that includes the last two lines coming in 1495. Mary was also seen as having been born without sin herself (the doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception”) and having been bodily taken up into Heaven at the end of her earthly life (the “Assumption of the Virgin”). These ideas sprang from the devotion that the early Christians felt for Mary, only later making their way into official Roman Catholic doctrine. The immaculate conception doctrine was only declared to be dogma in 1854, and the assumption only in 1950. There is also the idea, not contained in our text, that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. This concept is hard to square with the fact that there are brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in the Bible, with this verse in Mark being the main example:
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? (6:3 KJV)
Mary herself would be quick to turn away all this attention and veneration from herself and point to Jesus, and she calls God her “Savior” in her great prayer of praise, the Magnificat. One might ask, why would a woman conceived without sin even need a Savior? That’s an interesting question, and Mary does not claim any special power or position for herself. She rejoices only in that she is fulfilling God’s purpose for her: ‘For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed,’ because ‘He that is mighty hath magnified me.’ Her focus always revolves around the greatness of God.
There are many settings of this Annunciation text, not all of them associated with Christmas. This essay was originally written to go with a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s version, his Opus 23 No 2, which was not written for church performance but for a musical society. Perhaps the most famous setting of the “Ave” is the one by Charles Gounod. But there are plenty to choose from, whatever the occasion, all of them beautiful. If you would like to read additional material about one particular setting, follow this link to read the one about Franz Biebl’s version.
And now something just for fun: What is the relationship of the “Ave Maria,” or actually its English equivalent “Hail Mary,” to football? Well, here’s the story:
Calling a high-risk pass a “Hail Mary” goes back to the 1920’s with the Notre Dame football team. “A ‘Hail Mary’ pass . . . is one that is thrown with a prayer because the odds against completion are big.” One of the players said after an important Notre Dame win, “Say, that Hail Mary is the best play we’ve got.” The phrase was used mainly in Roman Catholic universities’ teams until 1975, when Roger Staubach threw a famous last-minute pass that won the Cowboys a close playoff game against the Vikings. Afterwards he said, “I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.” (quotations from Wikipedia)
And I guess we’ll leave it at that!
©Debi Simons
