Hail Mary

Also known as the Ave Maria (Latin) or Angelic Salutation, the Hail Mary is a traditional Christian prayer asking for the intervention of the Blessed Mother in the lives of individuals on Earth. In the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, a similar prayer is used in formal liturgies, both in Greek and in translations. It is also used by many other groups within the Catholic tradition of Christianity including Anglicans, Independent Catholics, and Old Catholics. Some Protestant denominations, such as Lutherans, also make use of a form of the prayer.

Based on the greeting of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary in the Gospel of Luke, the prayer takes different forms in various traditions. It has often been set to music, although the most famous musical expression of the words Ave Maria — that by Franz Schubert — does not actually contain the Hail Mary prayer.

Biblical source

The prayer incorporates two passages from Saint Luke's Gospel: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," and "Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." In mid-13th-century Western Europe the prayer consisted only of these words with the single addition of the name "Mary" after the word "Hail," as is evident from the commentary of Saint Thomas Aquinas on the prayer.