Day 13: Full of Grace

Hi, I'm Fr. Mark Mary with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast where through prayer and meditation, the rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world.
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Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. We're continuing on in phase two of the Rosary in a Year podcast that we're calling the biblical roots of the rosary.
And we're going to transition now from our prayer and reflection on the Our Father to the Hail Mary. And we'll cover the Hail Mary over the next three episodes, beginning today with Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
And these words, of course, come from the mystery that we know of as the Annunciation. These are the words spoken in greeting by the angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. An angel is a messenger of God.
And the message that the angel carries isn't their own message. It's the message that God gave them to carry.
And Hail Mary, full of grace, it's a greeting, right? But it's not just Gabriel's greeting, it's God's greeting. And this is how God wants to greet Mary.
And I would propose this is how he wants us to come to Mary. And this is confirmed by the Catechism, paragraph 2676.
The greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who through his angel as intermediary greets Mary.
And in praying and reflecting with this in preparation for this

episode, a light bulb went on and I thought it was pretty neat. And so I'm going to share it with you.
We just finished right five days with the Our Father. And now we're with praying and reflecting on the Hail Mary.
And these are the two foundational prayers of the rosary. Where does the Our Father come from.
God teaches us. Jesus teaches us the Our Father.
He teaches us what words to say. He teaches us how to approach the Father.
The Hail Mary, these opening words, also are words that God gave us. And as Jesus, as the Our Father, the Lord's Prayer teaches us how to come to the Father, how to approach the Father, God teaches us how to approach Mary.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And I just found this really beautiful.
What we're doing here is we are greeting the Blessed Mother and we're greeting her with God's own words. And as I've explained before, and I'll explain again, because I'm self-conscious about it, the Hail Mary and all of these prayers are so rich and there's no way we can do them justice in just one episode or a couple of days, et cetera.
If you want to really unpack the theological meaning of the words, like full of grace, the Lord is with thee, I'd really recommend you check out Pope John Paul II's encyclical letter, Redemptoris Mater. There's a couple of paragraphs there.
It's free. You can find on the Vatican website and he offers a really rich theological discussion on what these words mean.
And for our purposes, I'm going to lead us to approach these words and to reflect upon them in a way which I think is going to best serve us in our praying of the rosary.

And so I'm going to pull again from Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter on the Most Holy Rosary.

This is paragraph 26.

Referring to the method of the rosary, he says this,

it is a method based on repetition.

This applies above all to the Hail Mary, repeated 10 times in each mystery. If this repetition is considered superficially, there could be a temptation to see the rosary as a dry and boring exercise.
It is quite another thing, however, when the rosary is thought of as an outpouring of that love, which tirelessly returns to the person loved with expressions similar in their content, but ever fresh in terms of the feeling pervading them. And I think this is so beautiful and offers us such a really particular focus of prayer,

particularly this day.

As we're approaching the Blessed Mother in prayer,

and we're speaking these words,

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

We're going to be continuing these words again and again.

And we are greeting her with ever new love, ever new affection, ever new confidence, ever new joy. Hail Mary, I love you, Mother.
You are beautiful, Mother. Full of grace, you are full of grace, Mother.
And where I'm lacking, pour upon me your grace. The Lord is with thee.
Give me again your son. Give me a greater love of your son.
Give me more of your son. Hail Mary, full of grace.
The Lord is with thee. The content, the form, the words, they don't change, but the affection is ever new.
The love is ever new. And so my friends, this is the

invitation for you this day. Let us slow down.
Let us focus just on this part of the Hail Mary, just these words of greeting that God has given to us. And let us approach her again and again with an outpouring of love

which tirelessly returns to the person loved. And so let us pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Amen. 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 at the hour of our death.
Amen. 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 at the hour of our death.
Amen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

All right, friends, thanks for joining me again today. I was just, yeah, really moved praying.

And hopefully you were as well as we just greet the Blessed Mother with great love,

the love that she deserves.

And I look forward to continuing this journey again with you tomorrow.

Poco a poco.

All right.

Bye, friends.