I’m going to say a couple of sentences that have been incorporated into a larger prayer, and if you know the rest of the prayer, I want you to say it aloud, boldly, so that you can be heard. Here are the sentences and first part of the prayer: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…..”
The rest of the prayer goes like this: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death. Amen.”
That is known as the “Hail Mary.” For some of us the Hail Mary is a forward pass in football that doesn’t have much going for it other than a prayer. For others, it’s a prayer that is an important part of our daily regimen of prayer. Is there anyone here who says it regularly, or even just once in a while?
The first part of it comes right out of the Gospel according to St. Luke and consists of a combination of the words spoken to Mary first by the Archangel Gabriel and then by her cousin Elizabeth. When Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive and bear a Son, he also told her that her cousin, Elizabeth, who was an old woman and who had never been blessed with a child, was also pregnant with John, who would become known as the Baptist.
If you had been Mary and had just received the amazing news that she received, and that there was someone else, in fact, a relative, who was also experiencing a miracle pregnancy, what would you do once the angel had departed? You’d go and talk with that relative and compare notes, which is exactly what Mary did. Luke puts it this way: “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.” A popular new translation called The Message puts it this way: “Mary didn’t waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zechariah’s house, and greeted Elizabeth.
Advent is a time when we prepare for the coming of Christ, whether we’re speaking of the first coming, as we prepare to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, Christ-Mass; or whether we’re speaking of the coming of Christ at the end of time, to judge the living and the dead. There are three major figures in the season of Advent. The first is Isaiah, whose prophecies of the coming of the Messiah are well-known. Handel used Isaiah’s prophecies liberally in his Messiah, and we always hear from Isaiah in the scripture readings in Advent.
The second prominent figure is John the Baptist, who was the one sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. The second and third Sundays in Advent are devoted to John the Baptist. He was such a powerful preacher that some believed that he was the Messiah. Yet, John always pointed beyond himself to Jesus. “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
The third figure of Advent, of course, is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the fourth Sunday of Advent is always devoted to her. Of all of the saints of the Church, the Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord, is by far the most controversial. Known in the Eastern Church as the God-bearer, Theotokos, and in the West as the Mother of God, she has been venerated from very early times as the mother of our Lord, and as the centuries wore on she became more and more important in the piety of the people of God, so that in the late Middle Ages devotion to Mary often exceeded devotion to Jesus, the Savior of the world. Protestant reformers rightly sought to change that piety, so that Jesus would once again be worshipped as Savior and Lord, but in doing so many of them discarded the Virgin Mary completely, doing away with all Marian devotion and piety.
Anglicanism didn’t follow that path, however. She remains a prominent figure in our theology and piety, being mentioned by name in the creeds; she is a central figure in several feast days, with one feast day devoted solely to her (the 15th of August, which is the same day upon which Roman Catholics observe the Assumption of Mary into heaven); and her canticle, the Magnificat, is the primary canticle in daily Evening Prayer. And it goes beyond that, in that many Anglicans hold to the doctrine of the Assumption, and even the Immaculate Conception. Anglo-Catholics also include the Hail Mary as a part of daily piety.
Wherever you are on the spectrum of Marian devotion, the Blessed Virgin Mary deserves our respect and veneration, for it was through her response of faith that the Savior of the world was able to take flesh and become a human being. When the Angel Gabriel announced to her that she would become the mother of the Son of God, the Mother of God, she could have said, “Thanks, Gabriel, but no thanks.” In saying yes, she was assenting to becoming pregnant out of wedlock, which could have led to her being stoned to death. As it was, she was opening herself to all of the pain and grief that would come eventually in seeing her beloved Son die a torturous death on a cross.
In her response to the angel, Mary becomes the greatest example of faith for the Church for all time. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy Word.” In other words, “Whatever this means for my life, whatever consequences, good or bad, that come to me from this, I accept it, for God is the center of my life; I have given myself to him to be used for his purposes.
As people of faith, we seek to follow her example. May God grant us the grace to say yes to him this day, and all the days of our lives. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death. Amen.”