There is a story about a young 6 year old boy, a protestant, who was given a prayer card with a Hail Mary on it. The boy took great delight in this prayer, but when his mom discovered that he was praying it she got very upset. She told him the prayer was superstitious Catholic Mary-worshiping nonsense, and that he must stop immediately. Well that was that. However, some time after this the boy came excitedly to his mom. He exclaimed that he was reading the bible and that the Gospel of Luke had the Hail Mary in it! The story goes that boy returned to saying the Hail Mary everyday. When he grew older he became Catholic, and was later ordained a priest.


There is another story about the Cure of Ars, St. Jean Marie Vianney. When he was a boy Vianney used to work out in the field. To make himself work faster in the rows, he would place a statue of Our Lady at the end of a row. Working towards the statue inspired him greatly, and he became tremendous at his work.


How fortunate we are to have the glorious Mother of God as our mother also! I have nothing to add to these stories.

A Most Highly Favoured Lady?

I remember talking a while back with a lady from our old parish who is a good friend of ours. Briefly, she is a very devout woman whom Becca and I always joke that if we ever need anything, we just get her to pray for it. She prays with great trust, and subsequently has tremendous faith. So there we were talking on a Sunday afternoon. I was enthusiastically telling her about the Mariology course I was working on. I was about to talk about something really special that I had just learnt, that is, the importance of a proper translation of Luke 1:28.

Warning: Nerdy Biblical Exegesis Ahead

You see, Luke 1:28 is where the angel Gabriel greets Mary with, what Luke writes in Greek as, "kecharitomene." In the RSV Bible kecharitomene is translated as “Hail, O favored one!” Yet, in this instance the translator is indeed a traitor.

Examining kecharitomene closer reveals much more than Mary as being simply favoured. Indeed, kecharitomene is, in fact, the perfect past participle of the verb charitoo, Thus, a perfect past participle carries the connotation of a previous passive change, for to be passive means that it is done to you, to be past means it happened in the past, and to be perfect means the past action is completed. In other words, if kecharitomene is the perfect past participle of charitoo, or “grace,” than Mary passively received this grace, in the past, and that this previous reception is completed. 

Ok, what am I saying here? That Gabriel's greeting to Mary declares a previous completed action of grace in Mary, but this completed action also is in place for her subsequent divine motherhood. In other words, kecharitomene essentially teaches that Mary was Immaculately Conceived; that God perfectly prepared her with the fullness of grace in correlation with her impending Divine motherhood. The translation of “Hail, full of grace,” then, is much more suitable than “O favored one,” for it speaks more to the prevenient grace in Mary (Immaculately conceived, and thus fully with grace) which has made her suitable to be the Mother of God.

Nerdy Biblical Exegesis Completed: Resume Reading

So there I was about to tell this person all this incredible exciting stuff regarding the necessity of the Immaculate Conception, and how it is evident in a true translation of Scripture. But she cut me off... She started going on about how the more she prays about it, the more she knows that Mary must have been Immaculately Conceived because of how humble she was. She explained that not only the humility of Mary is evidenced in the Annunciation, but also that this humility allows for her to be declared full of grace. Finally, she concluded that, after praying about it, she believes Mary was given the fullness of this humility beforehand in preparation for her mission, and thus ultimately the angel Gabriel in the Annunciation is simply declaring to Mary what has already been completed by God: i.e. the Immaculate Conception.

"Oh wow." I replied to her.

Yep, by deep prayer with God she figured out exactly what countless hours of my Master's studies have brought to my attention. "So there..." I thought, "what a waste!" Why spend thousands of dollars on courses and books, and hours and days and months and years studying, when you can know all of this stuff directly from God through prayer?

Some are just more favoured than others, I guess.

Happy Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception!