Hail Mary

[Theologian in Training]

[i][b]Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou, amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.[/b][/i]

[b]Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee[/b]

[i]KJV:[/i] Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

[i]Holman Christian Standard:[/i] "Rejoice, favored woman! The Lord is with you."

[i]Douay-Rheims:[/i] Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

[i]RSV:[/i] "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"

[i]NAB:[/i] "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you."

[b]Blessed art thou, amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb[/b]

[i]KJV:[/i] Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

[i]Holman Christian Standard:[/i] Blessed are you among women, and blessed is your offspring!

[i]Douay-Rheims:[/i] Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

[i]RSV:[/i] "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

[i]NAB:[/i] "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

[b]Jesus[/b]

[i]KJV:[/i] And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

[i]Holman Christian Standard:[/i] You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call His name JESUS.

[i]Douay-Rheims:[/i] Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Jesus.

[i]RSV:[/i] And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

[i]NAB:[/i] Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.

[b]Holy Mary[/b]

Dictionary. com defines holy thusly:
# Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power; sacred.
# Regarded with or worthy of worship or veneration; revered: a holy book.
# Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person.
# Specified or set apart for a religious purpose: a holy place.
# Solemnly undertaken; sacrosanct: a holy pledge.
# Regarded as deserving special respect or reverence: The pursuit of peace is our holiest quest.

When Mary is venerated as holy, we are merely addressing her by, what by definition, she is. No word games, no tricks, She is holy.

[b]Mother of God[/b]

[i]KJV:[/i] And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

[i]Holman Christian Standard:[/i] How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

[i]Douay-Rheims:[/i] And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

[i]RSV:[/i] And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

[i]NAB:[/i] And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Now, there are a couple of points I feel should be made.

First: When Mary came to Elizabeth she was filled with the Holy Spirit and the baby leapt in her womb. This is important to note, for two resons. One, it shows that what was in Elizabeth's womb was indeed a child, because a bag of tissues cannot leap as a result of an overshadowing from the Holy Spirit. Second, the Holy Spirit was accompanying Mary when She went to visit Elizabeth. So what? It shows a glimmer of the Trinity, for wherever Jesus is so is The Father and The Holy Spirit. Therefore, the child that dwells within Mary's womb is not just anyone, He is divine, for who else did the Holy Spirit accompany while they dwelt in their womb?

Second: simple logic helps us see that Mary, by virtue of who dwelt within Her womb, is indeed the Mother of God. For if God dwells within the womb of any woman, and that woman bears that child, She is by virtue of her child-bearing the mother of that child. Think about surrogate mothers, they were still mothers, and their title attested this as such. So, when we call Mary, the Mother of God, it is properly her title, just as we call your mother, the mother of you.

Lastly: Is the Lord Jesus? Well, even barring what was said above, each translation from above does indeed associate Lord with Jesus, especially when referring to Him as Emmanuel. Watch the correlation closely:

[i]KJV:[/i] And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

[i]Holman Christian Standard:[/i] She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: See, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and they will name Him Immanuel , which is translated "God is with us."

[i]Douay-Rheims:[/i] And she shall bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

[i]RSV:[/i] she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us).

[i]NAB:[/i] She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means "God is with us."

[b]Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. [/b]

Now, this is what makes this prayer specifically Catholic. Not because we are asking for a Saint to pray for us, no, but because we believe in something called the communion of the Saints. Essentially, what this means, is that since Christ died and was Resurrected, He broke the bonds of death. Therefore, there is no separation between who we know here and who we know in Heaven. In that sense, when we ask someone to pray for us, we are doing the same thing Paul did. He asked for his brothers and sisters to pray for him, so too us. The difference is we do not see those people as dead and gone, never to communicate with us again, but as members of the Body of Christ, whether alive or deceased. [b]KJV[/b]: [i]But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. [/i]In other words, if one abolishes death, then death does not have the same power of separation it had before it was abolished. There is no separation.

[b]Amen [/b]

"So be it."

Mother Mary, Pray for us.

[StColette]

Theologian great post and perfect for today

[phatcatholic]

good stuff, good stuff

also, just wanted to add that you could use the words "all generations shall call me blessed" in scripture to back up the words "holy Mary" in the prayer.

[StColette]

Luke 1:28 -"Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you."
[Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,]

Luke 1:42 - "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!"
[blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.]

Luke 1:47 - "Because He has regarded the humility of His handmaid: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed"
[Holy Mary,]

Luke 1:47 - "And why is it granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
[Mother of God.]

Rev 8:3-4 - "An angel came and stood at the altar in heaven with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God."
[pray for us sinners now]

Mt 10:22 - "But he who endures to the end will be saved."
[and at the hour of our death. Amen.]

from [url="http://www.geocities.com/peterpaulmin/HailMaryisBiblical.html"]http://www.geocities.com/peterpaulmin/Hail...isBiblical.html[/url]

[MorphRC]

Good stuff

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='phatcatholic' date='Aug 16 2004, 03:08 AM'] good stuff, good stuff

also, just wanted to add that you could use the words "all generations shall call me blessed" in scripture to back up the words "holy Mary" in the prayer. [/quote]
Yeah, I was going a different route. Wanted to keep things as simple as I could and just as biblical. Also, since many jump on the Mary is not holy bandwagon, I wanted to go the way of semantics rather than the bible. They can argue the bible, they cannot argue a definition unless they choose to redefine what that definition is.

As to praying for us sinners, I also decided to take a different approach. Sometimes we tip toe around the fact that this prayer, though biblically based, is a Catholic prayer. I wanted to emphasize its Catholicity with our belief in the Communion of the Saints, rather then, again, finding Scripture as a justification.

Thank you for the comments

God Bless

[franciscanheart]

The Hail Mary has been one of my pfavorite prayers for a long time and i love this thread. I have known of verses for most of it but never found the others. Thanks again for an awesome thread. apologetics is the bomb!

[StColette]

lol Laura, girlie, you're gettin addicted to Apologetics

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='hugheyforlife' date='Aug 17 2004, 03:09 AM'] The Hail Mary has been one of my pfavorite prayers for a long time and i love this thread. I have known of verses for most of it but never found the others. Thanks again for an awesome thread. apologetics is the bomb! [/quote]
Np, glad you appreciate it. I wanted to honor Mary in some way on her day, so I figured I would do what is naturally associated with her: The Hail Mary.

God Bless