Hail Mary

“ WE HAIL thee, fair soul of Mary, who from all eternity wast God's, and God's alone; sanctuary and living temple of the Holy Ghost; sun without blemish, because free from original sin. With all our hearts we pray to thee, O Mary, to vouchsafe in thy goodness to be born again in spirit in our souls, that, led captive by thy loveliness and sweetness, they may ever live united to thy most sweet and loving heart. ”

“ Oh Mary, who art so amiable, and so grateful to him who loves thee, who will be so stupid and unhappy as not to love thee? In doubt and perplexity thou dost enlighten the minds of those who have recourse to thee in their troubles. Thou art the comfort of those who trust in thee, in time of danger. Thou dost help those who invoke thee. Thou art, continues Blosius, next to thy divine Son, the secure salvation of thy servants. Hail, then, oh hope of the despairing! ”

“ Hail, most compassionate mother of mercy; hail, consolation and pardon, Mary most desired. Who shall not love thee? Thou our light in doubt, our consolation in sorrow, our relief in distress, our refuge in perils and temptations, thou, after thy only-begotten Son, art our secure salvation. Blessed are those who love thee, oh Lady. Incline, I pray thee, thy ear of mercy to the prayers of this thy servant, this miserable sinner, and dissipate the darkness of my vices by the rays of thy sanctity, that I may please thee. [1929] ”

“ Our Father, Hail Mary.
Most Divine Spirit, the Paraclete, we hardly dare to beseech thee to come into our souls, knowing well how sinful and defiled they are. It seems an intolerable boldness to invite God — yea, no less a one than God! — to be a guest in a lodging so unclean. Yet thou vouchsafest graciously to reassure us by that infinite goodness of thine, whereby thou dost dispose with thy prevenient graces those hearts which thou condescendest to honour with thy presence. Thou disappointest not the desires of those who ardently sigh for thee, and are continually waiting for thee. ”

“ Oh Lady, after God we have no other hope but in thee. We bear the name of thy servants, do not permit the enemy to bear us away to hell. Hail, best mediatrix of God and men: Ave, Dei et hominum mediatrix optima. I salute thee, oh great mediatrix of peace between men and God; oh mother of Jesus our Lord, the love of all men and of God; to thee be honor and blessing with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Prayer of St. Thomas of Aquin.
Oh most blessed and sweet Virgin Mary, full of compassion, I recommend to thy mercy my soul and my body, my thoughts, my works, my life, and my death. ”

“ To say ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary,’ is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And then this string of beads is like Our Lady’s girdle, and her children love to finger it, and whisper to her. And then we say our paternosters, too; and all the while we are talking she is shewing us pictures of her dear Child, and we look at all the great things He did for us, one by one; and then we turn the page and begin again.” ”

“ In the twenty-second year after the ascension of the Lord, she was filled with an inexpressible longing to be with her Son; and, lo, an angel appearing with the salutation, ‘Hail, Mary, I bring thee a palm-branch, gathered in paradise; command that it be carried before thy bier, for thou shalt enter where thy son awaits thee.’ And Mary prayed that it [616] be permitted that the apostles, now widely scattered under their great commission to gospel the world, be gathered about her dying couch; also that her soul be not affrighted in the passage through the pale realm of death. The angel departed ”

“ THE immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary inaugurated the fulfilment of the divine promise made to our first parents in paradise in the words addressed to the serpent: "I shall put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head" (Gen. iii. 15) . Mary is the woman in whom Satan never had a part. Her intimate connection with God was announced by the angel: "Hail, full of grace; the Lord is with thee." ”

“ But Mary being destined to treat of peace between God and men, it was not fitting that she should appear as a partaker in the crime of Adam, and therefore the Lord preserved Mary from every stain of sin. Ah, my immaculate queen; oh spotless dove, so dear to God; ah, do not disdain to look upon the many stains and wounds of my soul; look on me and help me. That God who loves thee so much, denies thee nothing, neither dost thou know how to deny thyself to him who invokes thee. Oh Mary, to thee I have recourse; have pity on me. Mother inviolate, pray for us: “Mater inviolata, ora pro nobis.” ”

“ Oh my beloved mother, if, as I hope, I am saved by thee, I will no longer be ungrateful; I will make amends by perpetual praises and by all the affection of my soul for my past ingratitude, and will make some return for the love thou bearest me. In heaven, where thou reignest and wilt reign forever, I will always joyfully sing thy mercies, and forever I will kiss those loving hands that have freed me from hell as often as I have deserved it for my sins. Oh Mary, my liberator, my hope, my queen, my advocate, my mother, I love thee, I wish thee well, and will always love thee. ”

“ Do not permit that I shall have to curse thee in hell. My beloved Lady, I love thee, and how can thy goodness endure to see one of thy servants who loves thee, lost? Ah, obtain for me the grace to be no longer [267] ungrateful to thee and to my God, who for love of thee hath granted me so many favors. Oh Mary, what dost thou say to me? Shall I be lost? I shall be lost if I leave thee. But who will any more venture to forsake thee? Shall I ever forget thy love for me? Thou, after God, art the love of my soul. I dare live no longer without loving thee. I bless thee! I love thee! ”

“ She is so merciful an advocate, that she consents to defend all sinners who recommend themselves to her; and she is so powerful with our Judge that she gains all the causes which she defends. Oh our queen and advocate, in thy hand is our salvation; if thou dost pray for us, we shall be saved. Say to thy Son that thou dost wish us with thee in paradise. He denies thee nothing that thou dost ask. Oh our life, our sweetness, and our hope! Mary, pray Jesus for us. ”

“ May my heart always burn and my soul be consumed with love for you, oh Jesus, my beloved Saviour, oh my dear mother Mary. Grant then, oh Jesus and Mary, since without your grace I cannot love you, grant to my soul, not through my merits, but through yours, that I may love you as you deserve. Oh God! the lover of men, thou hast died for thy enemies, and canst thou deny to him who asks it, the grace of loving thee and thy mother? ”

“ And as we to-day try to appreciate the place of Blessed Mary in the life of the Church of God must we not feel it to be our misfortune that our past has been so wrapped in clouds of controversy that we have been unable to see her meaning at all clearly? Must we not feel deep sadness at the thought that the very mention of Mary's name, so often stirs, not love and gratitude, but the spirit of suspicion and dislike? We no doubt have passed beyond such feelings, but the traces of their evil work through the centuries still persist. ”

“ Oh mother of God, I have great confidence in thee. From thee I expect the grace to do just penance for my sins, and from thee I hope the strength never more to fall back into them. If I am sick, thou canst heal me, oh heavenly physician. If my sins have made me weak, thy help can make me strong. Oh Mary, I hope every thing from thee, for thou hast all power with God. ”

“ Accordingly thy wife Anna will bring forth a daughter to thee, and thou shalt call her name Mary: she shall be, as you have vowed, consecrated to the Lord from her infancy, and she shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from her mother’s womb. She shall neither eat nor drink any unclean thing, nor shall she spend her life among the crowds of the people without, but in the temple of the Lord, that it may not be possible either to say, or so much as to suspect, any evil concerning her. ”

“ Oh mother of my God, I come to thee full of confidence, even in the miserable state to which I find myself reduced by my sins; if thou dost reject me, I will plead with thee, for in a certain sense thou art bound to help me, since all the Church of the faithful calls thee and proclaims thee mother of mercy. [557] Thou, oh Mary, art so dear to God that he always graciously listens to thee; thy great mercy has never failed; thy most sweet condescension has never despised any sinner, however enormous his sins, who has had recourse to thee. ”

“ Mary herself, with her beauty and her misfortunes, shining among the rest like the creation of a softer age and clime, fills up the picture, and rivets the interest. She becomes the centre round which the others revolve; and their importance is measured only by the influence they exercised over her fate, and the share they had in that strange concatenation of circumstances, which, as if in mockery of the nobility of her birth, and the splendour of her expectations, rendered her life miserable, and her death ignominious. ”

“ If thou hast suffered much upon earth, far greater is the glory that I have prepared for thee in heaven. Come there to sit near me; come to receive the crown that I will give thee as queen of the universe. Now, behold, Mary leaves the earth, and calling to mind the many graces she had there received from her Lord, she looks at it at the same time both with affection and compassion, leaving in it so many poor children, in the midst of so many miseries and dangers. And now Jesus offers her his hand, and the blessed mother rises in the air and passes beyond the clouds and spheres. ”

“ If, on the one hand, the temptations to which Mary was exposed be duly considered,—her youth,—the prejudices of her education,—and the designing ministers by whom she was surrounded;—and, on the other, her conduct towards the Reformers, towards her enemies, towards her friends, towards all her subjects,—the deliberate judgment of calm impartiality, not of hasty enthusiasm, must be, that illustrious as her birth and rank were, she possessed virtues and talents which not only made her independent of the former, but raised her above them. ”

“ Catherine of Sienna, as we read in Blosius, that he, in his goodness, had granted to Mary, from love to his only begotten Son, whose mother she is, that not even one sinner, who commends himself devoutly to her, should be the prey of hell. [680] The Prophet David, too, prayed to be rescued from hell, for the honor in which he held Mary: “I have loved, oh Lord, the beauty of thy house; [261] take not away my soul with the wicked.” ”

“ Oh holy and heavenly infant Mary! thou who art the destined mother of my Redeemer and the great mediatrix of miserable sinners, have pity on me. Behold at thy feet another ungrateful creature who has recourse to thee and implores thy mercy. It is true that, for my ingratitude towards God and thee, I am deserving of being abandoned by God and by thee; but I have been told, and thus I believe, knowing how great is thy compassion, that thou wilt not refuse to help him who, with confidence, recommends himself to thee. ”

“ In spite of the Queen’s resolve to treat the peace disturbers with greater severity than heretofore, her former leniency having been so much abused, it does not appear from the above that Mary had any desire for their death, but it would seem rather, as if she snatched at every pretext for sparing their lives, providing them with every possible pretext for escape. In her desolation and perplexities, she turned more than ever to the consolations of religion, and to the relief of the poor and afflicted. ”

“ What power! what sweetness, filling his heart with rapture even while his spirit cried out against it! What voices, entreating, commanding, uplifting!
Nay, what was he saying? and who did not know that Satan could put on an angel's look when it pleased him? and if a look, why not a voice? When had a fiddle played godly tunes, chant or psalm? when did it do aught else but tempt the foolish to their folly, the wicked to their iniquity?
Mary! Mary! How lovely she was, in the faint gleams of light that fell about her, there in the dim old attic! He felt her beauty, almost, more than he saw it. ”

“ She knows that she is offering to God the firstfruits—the earnest of what is to come; and she makes her sacrifice whole-heartedly, zealously, lovingly. She said her Fiat at the Incarnation, and she will never take it back. She is His Mother—it is with Blood drawn from her veins that He will one day redeem the world; and she offers to God now, not only the Victim Who is to be the Redeemer, but herself as a co-victim—herself to suffer with Him. "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord"—ready to give Him all that He requires. How perfectly Mary identifies herself with Jesus! ”

“ How dost thou love the creatures of earth, deceitful and lying creatures, who betray and make thee lose thy soul, thy body, paradise, and God? And why not love Mary, the most loving, the most amiable, and the most faithful, who, after enriching thee with consolations and graces in this life, will obtain for thee, from her divine Son, the eternal glory of paradise? Oh Mary, Mary, beautiful above all creatures! lovely, next to Jesus, above all loves! dearer than all created things! ”

“ Fitly the ‘angels of the mount’ have determined to make prominent the beautiful, patient, modest Mary, Mother of Jesus. And to study her intelligently or profitably, it is necessary to know her not only as an historical personage, but as one in the cavalcade of symbolism unfolded by Sacred Writ and by Nature. She passes by, herself every way unique, the exemplar of God to those aspiring after gentle, devout girlhood, pure and wise maiden-life, constant wifehood, and patient, consecrated, and influential motherhood. ”

“ Thou who art our defence and joy, grant me what I ask; make me worthy of enjoying with thee that great happiness which thou dost enjoy in heaven. Yes, my Lady, my refuge, my life, my help, my defence, my strength, my joy, my hope, make me to come with thee to paradise. I know that, being the mother of God thou canst obtain this for me if thou wilt. Oh Mary, thou art omnipotent to save sinners, thou needest nothing else to recommend us to thee, for thou art the mother of true life. ”