The Hail Mary
The text of the Hail Mary, where each half of it comes from, and what Catholic and Orthodox Christians understand themselves to be doing when they pray it.
The prayer
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.
History & tradition
The first half is Scripture, almost word for word: the angel Gabriel's greeting at the Annunciation (Luke 1:28) joined to Elizabeth's greeting at the Visitation (Luke 1:42). Those two lines were prayed together as early as the sixth century. The second half — 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners' — is a later addition, added piecemeal through the medieval period and fixed in its present form in the sixteenth century. It is a request for prayer, addressed to a person the tradition holds to be alive in Christ, in the same sense that you might ask a friend to pray for you.
When to pray it
Prayed on its own, at the Angelus, or fifty-three times through the Rosary. Protestants who do not pray to the saints can still read the first half as what it is — the Bible's own words about the Incarnation.
Three short alternatives
The scriptural half alone
'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.' Luke 1:28 and 1:42, and prayed by Christians of every tradition.
The Magnificat
Mary's own prayer (Luke 1:46-55): 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.' Prayed at Evening Prayer across the Church.
For the hour of death
The last line is the whole prayer when someone is dying: 'pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.'
Pair it with daily practice
See our liturgical calendar for the Marian feasts in your tradition, and how the three traditions differ on this and much else.
"And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee." — Luke 1:28 (KJV)
Pray this with Quiethaven — free on iPhone.
Download on the App Store