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Hail Mary

The Hail Mary (Latin: Ave Maria) or Angelical salutation[1][2] is a traditional Catholic prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's subsequent visit to Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist (the Visitation). It is also called the Angelical Salutation, as the prayer is based on the Archangel Gabriel's words to Mary.[3] The Hail Mary is a prayer of praise for and of petition to Mary, regarded as the Theotokos (Mother of God). Since the 16th century, the version of the prayer used in the Catholic Church closes with an appeal for her intercession. The prayer takes different forms in various traditions and has often been set to music.

"Ave Maria" redirects here. For other uses, see Hail Mary (disambiguation) and Ave Maria (disambiguation).

In the Latin Church, the Hail Mary forms the basis of other prayers such as the Angelus and the Rosary. In the psalmody of the Oriental Orthodox Churches a daily Theotokion is devoted to ascribing praise to the Mother of God.[4] In addition, the Eastern Orthodox Churches have a common private prayer quite similar to the Hail Mary, though without the explicit request for intercession. The Eastern Catholic Churches follow their respective traditions or adopt the Latin Church version, which is also used by many other Western groups historically branching from the Catholic Church, such as Lutherans, Anglicans, Independent Catholics, and Old Catholics.[5]

Biblical source[edit]

The prayer incorporates two greetings to Mary recorded in the Gospel of Luke: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee",[a] and "Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb".[b][8] In mid-13th-century Western Europe, the prayer consisted only of these words with the single addition of the name "Mary" after the word "Hail", as is evident from Thomas Aquinas's commentary on the prayer.[9]


The first of the two passages from the Gospel of Luke is the greeting of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, originally written in Koine Greek. The opening word of greeting, χαῖρε (chaíre), here translated "hail", literally has the meaning "rejoice" or "be glad". This was the normal greeting in the language in which the Gospel of Luke is written and continues to be used in the same sense in Modern Greek. Accordingly, both "hail" and "rejoice" are valid English translations of the word ("hail" reflecting the Latin translation, and "rejoice" reflecting the original Greek).


The word κεχαριτωμένη (kecharitōménē), here translated as "graceful ", admits of various translations. Grammatically, the word is the feminine perfect passive participle of the verb χαριτόω (charitóō), which means "to show, or bestow with, grace" and here, in the passive voice, "to have grace shown, or bestowed upon, one".[10]


The text also appears in the account of the annunciation contained in chapter 9 of the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Matthew.


The second part of the prayer is taken from Elizabeth's greeting to Mary as recorded in Luke 1:42: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."[11] Taken together, these two passages are the two times Mary is greeted in chapter 1 of the Gospel of Luke.

Lutheran use[edit]

Martin Luther believed that Mary should be held in highest reverence, advocating the use of the first half of the Hail Mary (that is, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.") as a sign of reverence for and devotion to the Virgin.[19][20][j] The 1522 Betbüchlein (Prayer Book) retained the Hail Mary.[5] The second part of the prayer used in Catholicism today ("Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death") was not in use in Germany at the time.[15]

Anglican use[edit]

Some Anglicans also employ the Hail Mary in devotional practice. Anglo-Catholic Anglicans use the prayer in much the same way as Roman Catholics, including use of the Rosary and the recitation of the Angelus. Many Anglican churches contain artistic depictions of the Virgin Mary, but only a minority use Marian devotional prayers such as the Hail Mary.[22] That manifestation of veneration of Mary, decried by some Protestants as Mariolatry, was largely removed from Anglican churches during the English Reformation but was reintroduced to some extent during the Oxford Movement of the mid-1800s.

University of Dayton Hail Mary in various languages

Audio recordings and texts of the Hail Mary and other prayers in various languages

on the Hail Mary—Catechism of the Catholic Church

Article 2, "THE WAY OF PRAYER", 2676–2677

on YouTube, video of Andy Williams' performance of a song using "Ave Maria" as its refrain.

"The Village of St. Bernadette"