The Hail Mary

One of you asked me to post this explanation I  gave of the Hail Mary....so here goes.

The first bit is "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee..." This is the Angel Gabriel's greeting to Mary in Luke 1.

The second bit is "Blessed art thou and blest is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus...." This is Elizabeth's greeting to Mary when she visits her, also in the first chapter of Luke.

It ends with the words, "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." We rejoice in the Communion of Saints as those who have gone before us. It is well within our tradition to ask the Saints or a single Saint to pray for us. We DO NOT pray to the Saints, we pray with the Saints and we can ask them to pray with and for us, much as we would ask someone in our Church to pray for us. The Church Temporal (on earth) and the Church Triumphant (in heaven) are called to the same work of prayer and adoration.

Hope that helps!!