Hail Mary Prayer?

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itshannahbelle

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I’ve been considering converting to Catholicism because I feel called, but I am confused about the Hail Mary. When saying the prayer, is it worshiping Mary? I really don’t see it as worshiping her, but is it wrong to pray to her? And I’ve heard the prayer is biblical?

I would just like for someone please explain the prayer, if it is biblical & when saying it, is it worshiping and putting her before God?
 
Hail [Mary], full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. (Luke 1:28)
… and blessed the fruit of thy womb [Jesus]. (Luke 1:42)
Holy Mary, Mother of God [theotokos], pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Mary always leads us to the fruit of her womb. She is our spiritual mother, for “everyone who is a member of the mystical Body of Christ is spiritually born both of God and of Mary - just as Jesus was.” (St. Louis de Montfort)

Ecclesiasticus 24:
[24] I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. [25] In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. [26] Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits.
 
The prayer of a righteous person is more powerful than the prayer of an unrighteous and the most righteous of all the Saints is Mary. The Hail Mary asks her to pray for us and intercede on our behalf with our Lord. It is 100% biblical:
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Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.
Luke 1:28 “And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” The tense of the original Greek suggests a permanent state of being “highly favored,” thus full of grace.
Blessed art thou among women
Luke 1:41-42a “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women…” Luke 1:48 “For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.” Among all women is a way to say the highest/greatest etc. of a group.
Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus
Luke 1:42b “and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Luke 1:43 “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? In her greeting of Mary, Elizabeth is saying: “How is it that the mother of my God should come to me.” The Council of Ephesus in 431 AD proclaimed Mary “Theotokos” (God-bearer, i.e. mother of God). Put simply, if Jesus is truly God (and Truly Man) then he has a mother (Mary) who is the Mother of God.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Luke 2:35 “…and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” John 2:5 “His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary sees a need and appeals to Her Son to satisfy it. We turn to Mary to ask her to intercede with her Son in our daily spiritual and material needs, but especially at the hour of our death.
 
Maybe some meditation on who Mary is will help you. God chose her to be His Son’s mother from the beginning. She is the holiest person who has ever lived (aside from her Son since He’s a Person with a capital ‘P’ and God). And as you find in John 19:26-27, from the Cross, He made Mary Mother of all of us: 26When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household." (John, the disciple Jesus loved stands for all the rest of us.)

Reading the Catholic Catechism would be very helpful since Mary never detracts from her Son but leads us to Him. And we are not to worship Mary nor any other saint, but venerate them. And by venerating them, we venerate the Triune God since it is He who gifted these awesome human beings with the virtues to be the holy ones they are.

Don’t be afraid of Mary. If people knew her better, they wouldn’t be, either. WWJD? Would Jesus choose for a mother a woman possessed with pride who would not do His will? No. Eve, the first woman did, as did the rebellious angels and their leader, Lucifer who try to wreak havoc on God’s creation. Mary is loving and humble, and her Son’s instrument for peace and salvation. Ultimately, everything good comes through her Son.

Sean
 
itshannahbelle said:
I’ve been considering converting to Catholicism because I feel called, but I am confused about the Hail Mary. When saying the prayer, is it worshiping Mary? I really don’t see it as worshiping her, but is it wrong to pray to her? And I’ve heard the prayer is biblical?

I would just like for someone please explain the prayer, if it is biblical & when saying it, is it worshiping and putting her before God?
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Here’s one response from CAF:

catholic.com/tracts/saint-worship

This is from EWTN. Scroll down to “Mary” for Bible quotes.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/WALLET.htm

I think of it this way. Would you even hesitate to ask a friend, or family member, to pray for you? Well, we believe the more praying for us, the better, basically. In the same way we believe it’s very okay to have family or friends praying for us, we believe it’s acceptable and good to ask those who have died and gone to heaven pray for us.

Well, we believe when we “die”, we really don’t die, that we continue to live. We believe that the saints are actually alive and can pray for us.

See in the Bible where the rich man who died and went to hell asks Abraham for intercession, for example.

We also believe in the “communion of the saints”. We believe we are all part of the same Church, be we in heaven or on Earth.

With the “Hail Mary”, we are reciting scripture, mostly. “Full of Grace” were God’s own words to Mary through the Angel Gabriel to God’s most perfect creation.

The other phrase was from the visitation. Other than that, we are asking for her intercession.

Now, many of us Catholics, in addition to scripture, accept some apparitions which have been investigated and deemed “worthy of belief”. Now, in Fatima, Lourdes, etc., Our Lady asks us to pray the rosary, daily, that if we would be do this, we would have peace and much more.

Mary, particularly, has a very unique relationship with God. She is the daughter of God the Father, the mother of Jesus, God the Son, and the Spouse of God the Holy Spirit. She has many names, and one of the them is the “Tabernacle”, because her own body housed God, himself, for 9 months!

God honored her, and scripture says that ALL generations would call her blessed. However, it’s my experience that some other faiths, especially Protestant denominations often refuse to honor Mary, not even to fulfill scripture.

So, it’d be something like, “ALL generations will call me blessed” (Catholics mainly).
God seemed to want us to honor his mother. Consider that Mary’s womb was the first place God touched down when he came to Earth as God the Son.

She is worthy of honor and veneration. Now, we are not to worship her, consider her to be God. However, I think even children understand that we don’t consider Mary to be God.

We believe that she was assumed into heaven.

We were told her heel would crush Satan’s head. Satan is deathly afraid of Mary.

I heard of one exorcist, believe from the Vatican, talked about exorcisms. He said in exorcisms, the devil will curse everyone present, Jesus, God, the pope, but the one person the demons won’t curse, in all irony, is Mary.

The rosary, especially, is one very powerful prayer. We could achieve world peace through Mary’s intercession, but some have moved away from Mary.

We think we always need to go directly to God. However, notice that God didn’t even always go directly to us. For whatever reasons, he often sent intermediaries. Look at even with the Blessed Virgin Mary, God didn’t come down directly. He sent an angel as an intermediary.

However, some faiths believe intercession and such is wrong.

Now, you can go directly to God, but it doesn’t take anything away from God by asking for your friends and family to pray on your behave, intercessory prayer, and neither does it in any way diminish God to have Mary, the angels or saints pray for you or us.

With the rosary, for example, there are 15 promises for those who pray it consistently and diligently.

ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage.asp?number=438582

Mary has been intervening on our behalf since the Wedding of Cana, if not before. She promised to continue to intervene if we would do as she asked and pray these prayers as requested.

There have been many miracles associated with the rosary and Mary. Look at Lourdes, how a spring just appeared like that as people witnessed it.

With Fatima, there were tens of thousands of people who witnessed the Miracle of the Sun.

With St. Bernadette of Lourdes, wasn’t her body found to be incorruptible? Didn’t decay. Some saints have that, and it’s one way we sometimes also know they are saints.
 
Hi! I am a convert of two years. I was Protestant before.

Hail Holy Queen by Scott Hahn was very helpful to me as was his book Rome Sweet Home. He was a Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism and he dealt with all the issues regarding Mary and the Eucharist that Protestants sometimes have trouble understanding.

I can say after two years I am still so happy to be Catholic.

Hall Holy Queen

Rome Sweet Home

These are both really good, helpful books. :hug3:

P.S. I am going to include another of his books that is very good. I know you didn’t ask about the Eucharist, but just in case you later are wondering about that here is a link.

The Lamb’s Supper
 
TinyButterfly said:
Hi! I am a convert of two years. I was Protestant before.

Hail Holy Queen by Scott Hahn was very helpful to me as was his book Rome Sweet Home. He was a Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism and he dealt with all the issues regarding Mary and the Eucharist that Protestants sometimes have trouble understanding.

I can say after two years I am still so happy to be Catholic.

Hall Holy Queen

Rome Sweet Home

These are both really good, helpful books. :hug3:

P.S. I am going to include another of his books that is very good. I know you didn’t ask about the Eucharist, but just in case you later are wondering about that here is a link.

The Lamb’s Supper
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That is just Excellent !! I wish there where more.
It has been often said that we worship mary or the saints… personally I do not consider it worshipping, the 3 (Father , Son and Holy Spirit) are higher but we do pray to mary and the saints because they belong in the heavenly kingdom as well as they where chosen for it !
 
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