Matins: Commentary on the Hail Mary
Posted by Dim Bulb on January 24, 2009
This continues the commentary on the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Matins, the night office of the Church, is originally of monastic institution, and was a private devoition in preparation for the early morning Office of Lauds. During this solemn hour we may think of some of the events connected with this time. The Annunciation, the Birth of our Lord; His Own frequent prayers on the hill-tops of Judea; St Peter’s denial and repentance; our Lord in the tomb; the desolation of our Lady; the coming judgment like a thief in the night (1 Thess 5:2); the cry at midnight: Lo, the Bridegroom cometh, (Matt 25:6)and other such thoughts.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst 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.
After having united oursself to our Lord’s intention, the Church sets before us, as the most perfect model of the union which can exist between the Creator and the Creature, Mary, the Mother of god mad man. The Church seems to say to us, with St Ambrose: “May there be in every one the spirit of Mary, that he may magnify the Lord” (Migne, P.L., vol. 15, p. 156) And what this spirit was the Gospel tells us in these words: but His Mother kept all these words in her heart (Luke 2:51).
Hail Mary.- The pious author of the Myroure thus discourses on the Hail Mary: “The salutation is taken from the gospel of the greeting of the angel Gabriel and of Elizabeth; and it was the beginning of our health. And therefore this word Ave (Latin, translated as “Hail)spelt backward is Eva (Latin spelling for Eve; for like as Eve’s talking with the fiend was the beginning of perdition, so our Lady’s talking with the angel, when he greeted her with this Ave, was the entrance of our redemption. And so Eva is turned Ave; for our sorrow is turned into joy by means of our Lady. For Eva is as much [as] to say ‘Woe’; and Ave is as much [as] to say as ‘joy,’ or without woe. Therefore meekly and reverently thanking this glorious Queen of Heaven and Mother of our Savior for our deliverance, say we devoutly: Ave Maria, Hail Mary. Mary is as much as to say ‘Star of the Sea,’ or ‘enlightened,’ or ‘Lady.’ For all that are here in the sea of bitterness by penance for their sins, she leadeth to the haven of health. Them that are rightful she enlighteneth by [the] increasing of grace. And she showeth herself ‘Lady” and Empress of power above all evil spirits in helping us against them both in our life and in our death. Therefore we ought often and in all our needs call busily upon this reverend name, Mary.” (Myroure, pgs. 77-78)
Full of grace.- “Divers saints have divers gifts of grace, but never creature had the fullness of all graces but our Lady alone. For she was filled in body and soul with the Lord and Giver of all graces” (ibid p. 79). From the first moment of her being whe was prevented and so girt about with grace that original sin could find no place. The Lord possessed me from the beginning of His ways (Prov 7:22). The garden enclosed, the spring shut up, the fountain sealed, that Solomon sings of, and likens his beloved to (Cant 4:12), are types of our Lady’s soul; and the grace within her was ever welling up in its fullness. The Psalmist refers to her in these words: In the Sun He hath set His tabernacle (Ps 19:4); for more glorious than many suns, was the soul of her for nine months was the living tabernacle of God, and was adorned with the fullness of grace which was possible to any creature.
The Lord is with thee.- “For with her He was in her heart by excellence of grace, and in her reverend womb [by] taking there a body of our kind” (Myroure, p. 79). These words were also used by the angel who appeared to Gideon when he was threshing wheat by the vine-press to hide it from the Midianites: The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor (Judges 6:12). They were also the greeting Boaz gave to his reapers: The Lord be with you (Ruth 2:4); and they are enshrined in the Mass and Office in the oft-repeated words Dominus vobiscum.
Blessed art thou amongst women.- “For by thee both men and women are restored to bliss everlasting” (Myroure 29). Other women in Scripture have had these words applied to them: Blessed above women shall Hael be (Judge 5:24), sings the inspired prophetess Deborah, of Heber’s wife, who with her hammer smote Sisera, the foe of Israel (Judges 4:21); and Ozias, the high priest, in like manner addresseth Judith after her triumph over Holophernes: Oh, daughter, blessed art thou of the most high God above all the women upon the earth (Judith 13:18). These were types of our Lady. The words were said to Blessed Mary first by the angel at the Annunciation(Lk 1:28, and were repeated at the Visitation by St Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost(Lk 1:42), showing us that her blessedness is far above that of other women who were declared so only by their fellowmen. Our Lady receives the testimony not only of man, but of an angel sent by God (Lk 1:26).
And blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.- “Blessed be the womb, and blessed the fruit thereof, which is life and good to the angels in heaven and to men on earth; that is, Jesus, that is to say, Savior. For He hath saved us from sin and from hell; He saveth us daily from the malice of the fiend, and from perils, and He hath opened to us the way of endless salvation. Therefore, endlessly be that sweet fruit blessed” (Myroure (p 79).
Jesus.- This, like the name “Mary,” is an addition to the words of Scripture, linking in one salutation the two names.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.- These words are of Ecclesiastical origin and should be very dear to us; for they proclaim that privilege for which all her graces were designed-the Divine Maternity. When Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, taught that there were two persons in Jesus Christ, and that therefore Mary should not be called the Mother of God, the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), held under St Cyril of Alexandria, representative of Pope Celestine, declared the true doctrine of the Incarnation and that Mary, by rightful title, was to be called “Mother of God.” These words are, therefore, an act of faith in the Incarnation; for the Mother is ever the guardian of the Child: And they found the Child with Mary His Mother. (Matt 2:11).
The remainder of the prayer is a natural act of the heart, and was formulated about the sixteenth century. The Franciscans, in 1515, seem to have been the first to add them to the Breviary. (The Little Office of Our Lady; a treatise theoretical, practical, exegetical, by E.L. Taunton. Public domain text)
