The "Hail Mary" (Ave Maria)

See also: Rosary, Our Father, To Pray, Prayer, Supplication, To ask.

---

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: "Hail Mary, full of Grace; the Lord is with you", then the words of Elizabeth at the Visitation: "Blessed are you among all Women, and Jesus, the fruit of your womb, is blessed." 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 the work of Maria Valtorta

• GRM 16.4: The Annunciation which also corresponds to the Incarnation of Jesus in Mary:

"Hail, Mary, full of Grace, Hail!" [...] "No. Do not fear. The Lord is with You! You are blessed amongst all women!"

• GRM 21.5: The Visitation. Elizabeth at Hebron visits her cousin Mary, pregnant with the Holy Spirit:

"«You are blessed amongst all women! Blessed is the Fruit of Your womb! » (She says exactly that: two clearly separate sentences)."

• GRM 24.4: In this episode unique to the work of Maria Valtorta, Zacharias, touched by the Holy Spirit, recognizes the Messiah expected in the fruit of Mary’s womb.

"You are blessed because You obtained grace for the world and You are now bringing the Saviour to it. Forgive Your servant if he did not see Your majesty before. When You came here, You brought us all the graces, because everywhere You go, o Full of Grace, God works His miracles, and holy are those walls which You enter, holy become the ears which listen to Your voice, and holy the flesh You touch. Holy the hearts, because You grant Grace, Mother of the Most High, Virgin of the Prophets, expected to bring the Saviour to the people of God."

In other works by Maria Valtorta

Notebooks 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 those lips and those streets where the 'Hail Mary, is pronounced. - The greeting that purifies lips and heart - If you were able to say them, you would never be desolate - God is in Her. - Everything is possible to the mercy of God and the power of Mary - The co-redemption of Mary.
• 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.
• 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. - Whoever is with God has a power to irradiate. - Mary possessed the union with God to the perfection. - The foundation of union with God lies in prayer.
• 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).
• 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.
• 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.

Notebooks 1944

• Catechesis of January 10: Azariah, Maria Valtorta's guardian angel, shows her the attitude of veneration to have when reciting the "Hail Mary".

Remarkable points

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

In GRM 637.6-7, Jesus comments on why He dwells in Mary and, consequently, why "everything, everything, everything, but try and understand this once and for all, you have through Mary!"

"Do not discuss whether I could really be in Mary. If you say that God is in Heaven and on the earth and everywhere, why can you doubt whether at the same time I could be in Heaven and in the Heart of Mary, Who was a living Heaven? If you believe that I am in the Blessed Sacrament and enclosed in your tabernacles, why can you doubt whether I was in that most pure and ardent Tabernacle that was the Heart of My Mother?

What is the Eucharist? It is My Body and My Blood united to My Soul and to My Divinity. Well, when She was pregnant with Me, what else had She in Her womb? Did She not have the Son of God, the Word of the Father with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? Do you, perhaps, not have Me because Mary had Me and She gave Me to you, after carrying Me for nine months? Well, as I left Heaven to dwell in Mary’s womb, so, now that I was leaving the Earth, I was electing Mary’s womb as My Tabernacle. And which tabernacle, in which cathedral, is more beautiful and holy than this one?"

[...] Everything, everything, everything, but try and understand this once and for all, you have through Mary! You ought to love and bless Her at each breath of yours."

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.

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."

For further reading

• The Rosary: thematic sheet
• The Meditated Gospel Rosary : Adèle Plamondon and the Australian prayer group, promoting the work of Maria Valtorta. Free downloadable booklet. (French)
• Read the work online on mariavaltorta.online.
• Read the work online on The Word that Gives Eternal Life
• Maria Valtorta Index
• Discuss on the Maria Valtorta Forum

The Gospel as Revealed to Me (Maria Valtorta).