The "Hail Mary" (Ave Maria)

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    The Annunciation - Santissima Annunziata, Florence, where Maria Valtorta rests.

    The "Hail Mary" (Ave Maria in Latin) is a prayer composed of two parts:

    • The first part takes up the words of the angel at the Annunciation[1]: "Hail Mary, full of Grace; the Lord is with you"[2], then the words of Elizabeth at the Visitation: "Blessed are you among all Women, and Jesus, the fruit of your womb, is blessed."[3] This first part, in use since the 5th century, is common to Catholics and Orthodox who always recite it thus.
    • The second part is attributed to Saint Simon Stock (1164-1265), superior of the Order of Carmel and promoter of the scapular, who pronounced it on his deathbed in 1265: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

    In this second part, proper to the Catholic rite, Mary is greeted with the title "Mother of God" (Theotokos) defined in 431 by the 3rd Council of Ephesus. It was no doubt inspired by one of the oldest prayers to the Virgin Mary: the Sub Tuum Praesidium: "Under the shelter of your mercy, we take refuge, Holy Mother of God. Do not disdain our prayers when we are in trial, but deliver us from all dangers always, O Virgin glorious and blessed. Amen."

    Its origin according to Maria Valtorta

    • EMV 16.4: The Annunciation which also corresponds to the Incarnation of Jesus in Mary:
    "I greet you, Mary, full of Grace, I greet you!" [...] "No, do not fear. The Lord is with you! You are blessed among all Women."[4]
    • EMV 21.5: The Visitation. Elizabeth at Hebron visits her cousin Mary, pregnant with the Holy Spirit:
    "You are blessed among all Women! Blessed is the Fruit of your womb!" (she pronounces these two Good phrases separately)."[5]
    • EMV 24.4: In this episode unique to Maria Valtorta, Zacharias, touched by the Holy Spirit, recognizes the Messiah expected in the fruit of Mary’s womb.[6]
    "You are blessed, you who have obtained Grace for the world and bear its Saviour. Forgive your servant, if at first he did not see your majesty. It is all the graces you brought us with your coming, because wherever you go, O Full of Grace, God performs His miracles and holy are the walls where you enter, holy become the ears that hear your voice and the flesh you touch. Holy are the Hearts because you give the Graces[7], Mother of the Most High, Virgin foretold by the prophets and awaited to give God’s people the Saviour."

    In other works by Maria Valtorta

    The Notebooks of 1943

    In this work collecting dictations received alongside the visions, an entire cycle is dedicated to the meditation on the "Hail Mary":

    • Catechesis of September 3: First meditation - The Ave Maria: Blessed are the lips and lands where the Ave Maria is said. - The greeting that purifies lips and heart - If you knew how to say it, you would never be distressed - God is in Her. - Everything is possible to the mercy of God and the power of Mary - The co-redemption of Mary.[8]
    • Catechesis of September 4: Second meditation - Full of Grace: The angel’s greeting also addresses you - The angel’s greeting causes an increase of Grace - Mary’s complete humility - Mary’s vigilant Soul. She too was tempted. - Mary filled with Grace and full of Graces. - The mystical Incarnation of Christ in us. - Turning one’s gaze toward Mary.[9]
    • Catechesis of September 5: Third meditation, Ave Maria, The Lord is with you: The Lord is always with the Soul that is in Grace. - Mary was with God and God was with Mary. - Mary’s Passion: the deprivation of union with God. - Misfortune, blindness, madness, death, that is the loss of union with your Lord. - Mary never separated from God. - He who is united to God has a powerful radiance. - Mary possessed the union with God to the perfection. - The foundation of union with God lies in prayer.[10]
    • Catechesis of September 6: Fourth meditation, Ave Maria, "Blessed among all Women": All Paradise blesses Mary, masterpiece of universal creation. - Through Mary, Mother of the redeemer, God performed the salvation of humanity. - The fault committed by man could only be expiated by a man. - Redemption includes humanity from the earliest times to the last. - I am your true brother. - The God-Man could only be generated by the union of Love and Purity. - Praising Angels to Mary (doxology).[11]
    • Catechesis of September 7, 1943, Fifth meditation, "Blessed is the fruit of your womb":

    Mary’s glory had a cost - The beatitude and the pain tightened Mary’s Heart into a single knot at the Annunciation - The Incarnation of Jesus - anguish mingles with the joy of the Nativity - Mary’s pain at the descent of (Jesus dead from the) Cross - You have me because Mary accepted to drink the chalice of bitterness - Love my Mother with a love like mine.[12]

    • Catechesis of November 8, 1943: Sixth meditation, Ave Maria "Now and at the hour of our death": This invocation is paired with “Deliver us from evil” - You must not worry so much about evil and death in the human sense - The death of the spirit does not come once for the Soul - You have a powerful Mother with God - The true Death, that of the spirit, will not come for those who know how to pray to the Mother.[13]

    The Notebooks of 1944

    • Catechesis of January 10: Azarias, the guardian angel, shows Maria Valtorta the attitude of veneration to have when reciting the "Hail Mary".[14]

    Remarkable points

    The angel of the Annunciation says; "Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you." ([15]). The last part of this phrase originates in [16] which specifies twice, "your God is in you" (Daughter of Zion).[17]

    In [18], Jesus comments on why He dwells in Mary and, consequently, why "it is through Mary that you have everything, absolutely everything!"

    Do not ask yourselves if I could really be in Mary. If you say that God is in Heaven, on Earth, everywhere, how can you doubt that I could be at the same time in Heaven and in the Heart of Mary, who was a living Heaven? If you believe I am in the sacrament of the Eucharist, enclosed in your ciboria, why doubt that I am in that very pure and very ardent ciborium which was my Mother’s Heart?

    What is the Eucharist? It is my body and my blood united with my Soul and my divinity. Well! When she carried me, what else did she have in her womb? Did she not have the Son of God, the Word of the Father, with His body, blood, Soul, and divinity? If you have me, is it not because Mary had me and gave me to you after carrying me nine months? Well! Just as I left Heaven to dwell in Mary’s womb, I chose, when leaving Earth, Mary’s womb as my ciborium. And what ciborium, what cathedral could be more beautiful and more holy than that one?  

    […] Understand this once and for all, it is through Mary that you have everything, absolutely everything! You should love and bless her at every breath.
    This importance of Mary is emphasized at many points and justifies the presence of the "Hail Mary" in the prayer of the Church. Among these aspects, note the opinion of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787). Resuming the earlier tradition, he sums up the importance of Mary:
    "From Mary we received Jesus Christ, the source of all Good […] From the birth of Jesus Christ, and by virtue of a divine decree, all the Graces coming from His merits have been distributed to men, are distributed currently, and will be until the end of the world, through the hands and mediation of Mary.[19] And he specifies, by a metaphor: "Mary is not the source, but the Channel of these Graces."
    And that of Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941).
    "The Modern Times are dominated by Satan and will be even more so in the Future. The battle Against the Hell cannot be waged by men, even the most intelligent. Only the Immaculate has received from God the Promise of Victory over the Demon."[20]

    For further reading

    Notes and references

    1. ↑ Annunciation EMV 16
    2. ↑ Luke 1:28
    3. ↑ Luke 1:42
    4. ↑ Annunciation EMV 16.4
    5. ↑ Visitation EMV 21.5
    6. ↑ Zacharias and Mary, EMV 24.4
    7. ↑ Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787), summarizing earlier tradition, sums up Mary’s role as "full of Graces": "From Mary we received Jesus Christ, the source of all Good […] From the birth of Jesus Christ, by a divine decree, all the Graces coming from His merits have been distributed to men, are distributed currently, and will be until the end of the world, through the hands and mediation of Mary." (The Glories of Mary, chapter V: Mary Our Mediatrix, §1: The necessity of Mary’s intercession for our salvation.)
    8. ↑ Catechesis September 3, 1943 - First meditation, The Ave Maria
    9. ↑ September 4, 1943: Second meditation, Ave Maria, "Full of Grace"
    10. ↑ Catechesis September 5, 1943: Third meditation, Ave Maria, "The Lord is with you"
    11. ↑ Catechesis September 6, 1943, Fourth meditation, Ave Maria, "Blessed among all Women"
    12. ↑ Catechesis September 7, 1943, Fifth meditation, Ave Maria, "Blessed is the fruit of your womb"
    13. ↑ Catechesis November 8, 1943, Sixth meditation, Ave Maria "Now and at the hour of our death"
    14. ↑ Catechesis January 10, 1944, Ave Maria, venerating Mary
    15. ↑ Luke 1:28
    16. ↑ Zephaniah 3:14-17
    17. ↑ In Hebrew Adonai beqirbek: Be = in; Qèrèv = innermost parts. The final "K" is the possessive adjective referring to the second person: your.
    18. ↑ EMV 637.6
    19. ↑ Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, chapter V: Mary Our Mediatrix, § 1: The necessity of Mary’s intercession for our salvation.".
    20. ↑ Maximilian Kolbe, Spiritual Writings.
    21. ↑ The Meditated Gospel Rosary
    22. ↑ 1985 work online
    23. ↑ 2016 work online.
    24. ↑ Search the Valtorta Index
    25. ↑ Discuss on the Maria Valtorta Forum
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