Forgive the ignorant question, but is Seraphim’s rule for Hail Mary’s just saying: “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are though among 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”, 150 times?
Dear Friend,
A very good question, not (and never) an ignorant one!
St Seraphim taught several prayer rules to his disciples/spiritual children of which the Rule of the Theotokos was one.
This is set up like the Rosary with fifteen “tenners” or “decades” each beginning with an Our Father and then the prayer “Open to us Thy mercy, O Blessed Theotokos, so that placing our hope in Thee we will not be lost, but so that we may saved from all evil, for Thou art the salvation of the Christian people!” The second Marian prayer may be said at the end of the ten Hail Mary’s following too - for me, it is good segway into the Hail Mary’s.
Then ten times the Hail Mary: “O Theotokos Virgin, rejoice Mary, full of grace, blessed are thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, for Thou hast given birth to Christ the Saviour, the Redeemer of our souls.” (Other Orthodox renderings end with “to the Saviour of our souls”). If one is Western Rite Orthodox or Catholic, then the Hail Mary as you have given it above.
Very beautiful is the Ethiopian Hail Mary:
O Our Lady Virgin Mary, we hail Thee by the salutation of the Angel Gabriel. Thou are Virgin in spirit. Thou are Virgin in body. Hail Mary, Mother of Almighty God. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of Thy womb. Rejoice Mary full of grace, the Lord is with Thee, Pray for us to your beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, so that He may forgive us our sins, now and forever. Amen.
One may end with the Glory be to the Father and any other prayers one wishes.
Each decade/decima is in honour of one of the Mysteries of the life of Christ and the Theotokos - as an Eastern Catholic, I like the Western set and use the 20 Mysteries and add my own but also say the Mysteries as laid down by St Seraphim of Sarov and St Seraphim Zvezdinsky (shot by the bolsheviks in 1937).
Martin Luther’s Hail Mary which ends with “Jesus Christ” is an old Western form and words relating to the mystery can be added afterwards as set down in the 63 Hail Mary rosary of Schrocken in the Vorarlberg Alps that is said there to this day.
St Seraphim also prescribed the rule of the three Our Father’s, three Hail Mary’s and the creed once, to be said three times daily, interspersed with frequent Jesus Prayers and the shorter prayer to the Mother of God or else the Jesus Prayer with the “by the Mother of God” or “by the intercession of Thy most pure Mother.”
He laid down a much longer monastic rule for the nuns at Diveyevo with prostrations, longer forms of the Jesus Prayer, portions of the Psalms etc. He said that rule was given to him by the Mother of God herself and the rule recommended that the nuns conduct the “ceaseless Psalter” in their chapel with the ceaseless reading of the psalms, day and night, 24/7. Then there was the rule of 150 Our Father’s and 150 Hail Mary’s.
What the west calls the “rosary” (and in fact western Saints didn’t like that term but preferred the “psalter of our Lady”) is the Rule of the Theotokos.
Alex
I appreciate all the time you took to type out this information for me.
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