The Rosary I: Hail Mary, Line by Line

A Frequently Argued Quandary

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

This is just Luke 1:28. 

Blessed art thou among women,

This is just Luke 1:41.

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.

This is just Luke 1:42.

Holy Mary,

This is just another rendering of the same title that underlies “Saint Paul.” “Saint” just comes from the Latin “sanctus,” where “holy” bears a closer resemblance to the Greek “hagios.” If Protestants do not generally object to granting the title “Saint” to the great Christian heroes such as St. Augustine, they should certainly not object to the Greek equivalent being applied to the Mother of God. Speaking of which,

Mother of God,

This is just Luke 1:43. And not only that, but we had an entire ecumenical council (Ephesus I) on whether it was acceptable to call Mary the Mother of God. Note three things about this council: 1) We hammered out the proper title for Mary before we’d even finished developing a standard account of the relation between Christ’s human and divine natures. Ephesus I came roughly 20 years before that happened at Chalcedon. 2) The council decided that yes, it is licit to call Mary the Mother of God. 3) The council wasn’t really that divided—everyone just got together to tell Nestorius he was wrong (this is somewhat of a simplification but not much). 

pray for us sinners

Ahhhh yes. Here’s the rub. Mary? Praying for us??? 

It’s unclear to me what else she (or any other saint) has to do. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this is just from James 5:16.

Rather than rehash an argument for the intercession of the saints here, I’ll just defer to a future post I plan to write on the topic. I will say, though, that this is not theologically or philosophically distinct in any way from the intercession of the saints generally. If you accept that, then the Protestant objections to this phrase go away, too. 

Calvinists will be pleased to note that baked into every Hail Mary is the reminder that we are all sinners wholly dependent on God’s grace.

now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

A beautiful memento mori to round things off. I personally think many American Protestants would be much better off if they were constantly reminded of their death, especially if it came in a request for others to pray that it be a good, sanctified, Christian death. 

If all Scripture is God-breathed, then the Hail Mary is fine. At best, there is one detail that might be contested, but it’s a detail that has little to do with Mary directly.

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