As we have concluded the Nicene Creed and are entering into the month of May, it would be good to shift our attention to another prayer in our Faith for reflection.  The month of May is devoted to Mary, so the Hail Mary would be good to dive into.  The Hail Mary comes mainly from Scripture as a prayer from the angels or people she encounters, and the prayer aids us in understanding Mary’s relationship to Christ and the role she plays in our Church

The first lines of the prayer comes from Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation.  The angel proclaims “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).  What does the angel mean in regards to hail towards Mary?  Often, this is misinterpreted as a term of worship towards Mary, but that has to be incorrect because we only worship God and Gabriel would not encourage that kind of action.

As we have already seen in the Creed, angels are beings superior to humanity.  Their creation is purely spiritual without a corporeal body, thus they would be closer to the divine nature.  Due to this, when angels appear to humans, they are dominating beings that strike fear in people.  We see this when Abraham encounters angelic beings as well as Zechariah in the Temple, but this does not occur with Mary.  Instead of the reverence paid by humans to angels, Gabriel pays the respect of hailing a woman, Mary.  This is the only time an angel has ever done this.  Why?

The reasons for the utmost respect Gabriel pays to Mary will be explored in depth later, for the reasons are in the prayer.  The three reasons are:  full of grace, the Lord is with her, and blessed is she among women.  The overarching reason is that Gabriel is recognizing that she surpasses him in creation, and it is not related to her nature as human, which is always inferior to the angelic nature.  It has everything to do with the grace God has blessed her with and her fulfillment in God’s plan of salvation.  Let us look forward to our further reflections on Mary to understand why we Hail her with the angels.