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Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: THE

April 26, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

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.

A reflection on the word “THE”

By Melanie Betanelli

“The” is a humble little word and that is what makes it so hard to write about. I am beset on all sides with temptations to pride. How can I make ‘the’ important? How can I make it shine and stand out? How can I make a wonderful, memorable point despite the seeming limitations of this so ordinary word?

At first I was going to write about how I am such a pedant. How my first reaction to the word ‘the’ was to retort that it isn’t even in the Latin version of the prayer. It’s just a piece of English grammar, it doesn’t have any real meaning. And yet I knew that path was one of intellectual pride: Hey, look at me, I studied Latin. Don’t I seem so important?

I saw that instead I needed to focus on ‘the’ as a call to humility. I recently read in a biography of St Anthony of Padua that “humility is the mother and root of all virtues”. Yes, humility is the soil in which all the virtues grow. “God resists the proud but shows Himself to and uses the Humble,” St Anthony proclaims.

And yet even with this resolution firmly in place, I keep experiencing mission creep. I want to write about the mystery of Mary’s perpetual virginity and her role as the Ark of the New Covenant. I want to ponder the mystery of the Incarnation. (Yes, in an earlier draft I somehow managed to drag poor little ‘the’ kicking and screaming into those waters which are really too deep for this humble word.) But that isn’t where this meditation is leading.

Instead I need to accept the very littleness of ‘the’. It is important, every word has a role to play or it wouldn’t be there, this in not a prayer with excess verbiage; but it is not a profound role. ‘The’ is a necessary bit of grammar; but it is a very humble, everyday sort of word. We use it without much thought or care. I mistype it a hundred times in a day ‘hte’ my fingers type, much to my great chagrin. And how often do I post a blog entry without even noticing that typo?

I’m working on accepting ‘the’ for what it is and not demanding that it be something more. I need to just let ‘the’ be itself.

Humility. Why is it so hard to accept smallness? Why is it so hard to be unnoticed, unimportant? Why do we want to stand out from the crowd? To follow Mary must be to follow her example of humility. She always points away from herself and toward someone else. She points toward her son.

So it is with “the”. Don’t notice me, it says. I’m not important here. Look at Him. He’s what really matters. Keep your eyes on Him. The blessed. The fruit. Jesus.

–

Melanie Bettinelli is a wife and mother to four small children. She writes at that temptation to pride, her blog, The Wine Dark Sea.

image credit: MorgueFile

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Melanie Betanelli, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: IS

April 24, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

A reflection on the word “IS”

By Christine Johnson

What a daunting task, to contemplate the word “is.” How do you discuss the meaning of the verb “to be?” Have you tried defining it for a child? (Trust me, I’ve been homeschooling my girls for nearly nine years now, and defining this verb is no easy task.)

But here, in the middle of the Hail Mary, is this verb: is. To be. Conjugating the verb brings me up short, makes me stop in my tracks and realize something huge.

I am…

This is God. “I am Who I am.” The Great I Am. God, as Father Robert Barron puts it in his Catholicism series, has a nature of existence. His very nature is to be.

God has no beginning and no end. He is eternal. Alpha and Omega. These are things we hear and say, but to contemplate it is mind-numbing. I remember trying to understand this when I was a child. We were on a long trip from the Jersey Shore to Long Island to visit family, and I sat in the back seat of the car thinking about the eternal nature of God.

I gave myself my very first headache.

via Google Maps

But to contemplate it here in the Hail Mary gives us new things to think about.

First, the Eternal God, Creator of all things visible and invisible, became a Human Being. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Who has no beginning, had a beginning to His human life, and it was the moment the Archangel Gabriel approached the Blessed Virgin Mary and heard her fiat.

But this portion of the Hail Mary comes not from Gabriel. This part is from St. Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who has been confined to home as she awaits the birth of her first child, who will become the Baptizer. Elizabeth greets Mary with joy, proclaiming, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb!” (Luke 1:41-45)

And here is what sticks out to me: Elizabeth’s verb tense.

Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb!

Elizabeth doesn’t say, “Blessed will be the Fruit of thy womb.” She doesn’t use past tense, either, saying, “Blessed has been the Fruit of thy womb.” She uses the present tense: blessed is.

Jesus, new in Mary’s womb and yet Ancient of Days, is blessed. Blessed be the Name of God! Blessed be His Holy Name! We should be in continual praise of God, blessing His Name at all times. Every breath we have – every thought, word, and deed of our lives – should be given over to praise of our Creator! Elizabeth does just this here. She blesses God, gives Him praise and thanksgiving.

From http://www.baby2see.com/development/week8.html

The second thing that is brought to my mind as I look at this verb is that Jesus is present at that moment. Again, he is newly formed. When Mary receives word of Elizabeth being pregnant, it is already her sixth month. Mary would be traveling around 115 miles to get there. That’s a day trip for us, but on an ass there and back, it’s hardly an easy journey. But even if it took a month, Mary would only be about 6 weeks pregnant by the time she arrived in Hebron. This is a time when no one would be able to tell that Mary was pregnant just by looking at her. Jesus would be so tiny – less than an inch in length – that some people today would even question whether He was really a Baby yet.

Elizabeth uses the present tense verb to refer to Mary’s hidden Child. Jesus is present there – Emmanuel, God with us.

And this brings us to a final point: very often, we cannot see God with us. We look and find nothing. Our sorrows overwhelm us, and we fear drowning in our fears and anxieties.

But Jesus is with us. He might be hidden from obvious sight, as He was when Mary went to visit her cousin, but He is near. He is with us in a friend who calls just when you need someone to talk to. He is with us in the article you come across that speaks perfectly to your situation. He is with us in that tweet that makes you laugh in spite of your sadness. He is even with us in the smile of a stranger you pass in the store.

We only need to seek Him, and He will reveal Himself to us, often in very surprising ways.

It’s such a small word, but like the whispering wind in 1Kings (1Kings 19:11-13) that contained God, it’s not to be overlooked. After all, it’s Who God says He Is.

–

Christine Johnson blogs at Domestic Vocation and is active on Twitter as @catholicmomva. She’s one of those moms who I wish I was neighbors with so that we could have tea together in person. Because you know, she seems completely normal, despite the fact that she is so very amazing.

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Christine Johnson, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: BLESSED

April 19, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

A reflection on the word “BLESSED”

By Michelle Reitemeyer

“The graces obtained from the sacrament of marriage are vital,” I said firmly to my Catholic acquaintance. “I doubt my marriage would have survived so long without them. And I see many troubled marriages…Catholic friends…not married in the Church. It’s tough.”

A long time passed, perhaps a year. One day, this same acquaintance reminded me of that conversation. “You got me thinking that day,” she said. “I talked to my husband and we’re going to be married in the Church next month.” I had had no idea that her marriage of over a decade had been performed by a JP. Had I known, I might never have said what I did, not wanting to offend her.

I was humbled by her decision to obtain a sacramental marriage on account of my words. It wasn’t my work. It was the Holy Spirit. You never know when He might use you.

I have also been on the receiving end of casual words that haunt me. In fact, when Sarah assigned me my word – blessed – I instantly recalled a brief encounter from more than a year ago. I was having a bad day made worse by the necessity to drive to my husband’s office on a military post some twenty miles away. To get on post, you have to show your ID to a guard at a gate, and most engage in some typical small talk.

The woman on duty asked me, “How are you today?” and I answered, “Fine, thank you,” even though I didn’t really mean it. I asked her, “How are you?” because I am polite, and because I really do care, in a small way, and strive hard to recognize that it is a person and not an automaton with whom I am dealing.

And she answered, “I am blessed. Thank you for asking.”

These are words I have “pondered in my heart” frequently in the last year or more. I could never recognize that woman again, and I doubt that she would remember me. I suspect that here, once again, the Holy Spirit was at work.

Could Elizabeth have known, two millennium ago, the power of her words? “Blessed are you,” she told Mary, “and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” We have Scripture’s confirmation that her words were the work of the Holy Spirit and that Mary dwelt on, if not these particular statements, certainly many other conversations and events surrounding the Incarnation.

I do not know that Elizabeth expected her joyous exclamations to become the foundation of one of the most frequently recited prayers in history. I am confident, however, that Mary knew she was blessed. Unlike me, on that grumpy day a year ago, who was not feeling particularly blessed but who definitely needed a reminder, I think Mary was ever aware of God’s infinite Goodness. And I think it is this awareness that we are all called to emulate.

It is not always easy to feel God’s blessings. Many days, in fact, it is quite a challenge to find anything good in a particular situation. But this is not a trivial glass-half-full change of attitude. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging the difficulties that life is handing us; we don’t have to like our circumstances. But Mary’s response to a “crisis pregnancy” and an awkward social situation was not wailing and gnashing of teeth, rather, her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior, as Luke tells us.

This rejoicing in the midst of a difficult situation was a supreme act of humility. Mary could see that God was using her to fulfill His Divine Will, and she was grateful for the honor. None of us are called to such service, yet we each have our own small role in God’s plan. We can choose to be grumpy and ungrateful, or we can humbly accept God’s blessings in whatever form they come.

–

Michelle Reitemeyer blogs sporadically about her life as a military wife and homeschooling mother at Rosetta Stone. Future adventures will include simultaneously orchestrating an interstate move and giving birth to her seventh child without having a single meltdown.

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Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Michelle Reitemeyer, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: AND

April 17, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

A reflection on the word “AND”

By Ginny Kubitz Moyer

When I was single, signing birthday cards was a straightforward process. At the end of my message, I’d scribble “Love, Ginny,” and that was that.

Post-wedding, the process became a bit more complicated: “Love, Ginny” gave way to “Love, Ginny and Scott.” With the exchange of vows, I’d acquired not just a new last name but a longer written signoff.

Now, as the mother of two, signing a card is more complicated still: “Love, Ginny, Scott, Matthew, and Luke.” It’s no longer something I can dash off in three seconds; it takes more time, more space on the paper, and more muscle movement. Sometimes, when I’m feeling lazy, I just scrawl “Ginny, Scott, and boys.” When really pressed for time, I’ll make do with a quick “Ginny and Co.”

But regardless of which option I choose, there’s always an “and” in my signoff. I’m no longer just one person, but part of a unit. I’m part of a little family which, ten years ago, literally did not exist.

And I like that.

Admittedly, there are times when it’s not easy to be part of an “and.” On the rare days when we arrange a sitter and go to the movies, my husband wants to see the latest action flick while I would rather watch the movie about English women in bonnets and gloves. (Compromise ensues.) As a mom, I find that one of my kids invariably needs my attention just when I’m getting rolling on a writing project. Back when I was pregnant, the demands of being an “and’ were even more taxing; there was a little person inside me who ate everything I ate and drank everything I drank (goodbye alcohol, normal amounts of caffeine, and Brie).

But when I really think about this word, I can’t help but see it as a positive. “And” means more. It signifies abundance. It means that you are not alone, but part of a family or a community. It means sharing a past and present and future. It means having someone else there with you, by your side and on your side, through smooth sailing and through storms.

And when I think about Mary, it’s obvious that she knew all about being part of an “and.” In the Bible, we read about Mary and Joseph, Mary and Elizabeth, Mary and the beloved apostle, Mary and the apostles in the upper room. Throughout the Gospels, we catch numerous glimpses of a woman in relationship with others. Those relationships surely sustained her in moments of joy and wonder, in moments of confusion and uncertainty, in moments of excruciating pain – and in moments of astonishing new life.

Most of all, there’s the relationship that we see depicted on Christmas cards and in art museums all over the world. It’s the relationship between Madonna and child, Mary and Jesus, mother and son. It’s about two people, one who grew inside the other, sharing a connection that is universal and intimate and beautiful.

It’s the “and” that has changed the world.

–

Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of Mary and Me: Catholic Women Reflect on the Mother of God (which I highly recommend!). She blogs about faith, motherhood, and her serious book addiction at Random Acts of Momness.

image credit: MorgueFile

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, Ginny Moyer, guest post, Hail Mary, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: WOMEN

April 12, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 3 Comments

A reflection on the word “WOMEN”

By Jennifer Fitz

I have never been a girly-girl. Steeped from childhood in the androgenous militant feminism of the 1970′s, I came of age with a vague idea that femininity involved sexual license, athleticism, and a talent for mathematics. I aced calculus and played rugby – but still I argued bitterly with people who told me I was too smart to be just a housewife.

Deep down I knew that being “just a mom” was more than enough for anybody.

When I returned to the Church in my twenties, married and longing for children, I lapped up old-school odes to traditional marriage roles and the complementarity of the sexes. Among Catholics there was the Marian twist, but still I found the explanations wanting: It seemed as if Christian femininity was all about lace tablecloths and lovely fingernails. I was real short in the fingernail department.

Four children later, puzzling over what this “Women” thing might be about, the answer is intuitive: Motherhood. Not stay-at-home motherhood, not lovely-thanksgiving-dinners motherhood, not fifteen-children-and-counting motherhood. Just Motherhood. Keeping in mind that Eve was called Eve before ever she conceived and gave birth. Mary was prepared from her own conception to become mother of the Most High – a holy motherhood counted not from the moment she said “yes” to the angel Gabriel, not from day she gave birth in a stable, but from the very moment she existed.

Motherhood is who we are as women, regardless whether we ever marry, ever conceive –whether we ever even see light of day on this earth.

So what is it, then?

Motherhood is the business of populating Heaven. Men engender the little humans, and their part is not to be denigrated, but it is women who bear them. The first six or ten pounds of human flesh that come forth from the womb? That’s mom’s flesh. Borne from mom’s body.

Men are, on average, larger and stronger than women. They are uniquely equipped for, and come into their glory, in the service of motherhood. In the service of protecting and defending and providing for the life that women bring forth. And so we rightly recognize the bravery and courage of men – a kind of bravery that is uniquely masculine, the fortitude of fatherhood.

But we deceive and cheat ourselves if we fall for the line that motherhood is weakness and fear. It is not. Not for a moment. To be a mother is to embrace risk. It is to hand over your very body, your very life, to the service of another, in the hope – the mere hope – that the newly created soul will make its way to Heaven, cooperating of its own free will with God’s grace.

And if some of us women are called to biological motherhood – the business of bringing forth newly created bodies and souls — all of us are called to spiritual motherhood. Grandmother, aunt, sister, daughter, colleague – whatever our title, we have a lifelong mission. An eternal mission, as the intercession of the saintly women in heaven attests.

Ladies, which souls are you ushering towards heaven today? Who are you praying for? Who are you serving? Who are you showing the presence and the love of Christ? For whom do you offer up your last ounce of nothing, when all you have to offer is a pierced soul and a sorrowful heart? Motherhood is brave and risky business. Revel in the danger.

–

Jennifer Fitz blogs at Riparians at the Gate, homeschools her four kids, runs the Catholic Writers Guild blog, and does about ten other things I can’t list here, including writing for Amazing Catechists and CatholicMom.com. One of these days, a publisher is going to discover the goodness that is her, and then we will all remember how we knew her when…

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Jennifer Fitz, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: AMONG

April 10, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 4 Comments

A reflection on the word “AMONG”

By Jeff Miller

While Mary is blessed among women, this indicates not a separation of Mary from other women — but specifically casts her with other women. Mary is, as Wordsworth referred to her, “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” At the same time we also find that there were many types of Mary in the Old Testament. Mary is indeed among women.

Prominent among these types is Eve. At least since the times of St. Justin Martyr, Mary has been seen as the new Eve. The parallels with Eve are many, but it is where the parallel breaks down that illustrate the difference.

As St. Ireneus wrote, “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosened by Mary’s obedience. The bonds fastened by the virgin Eve through disbelief were untied by the virgin Mary through faith.”

Eve was the mother of all the living and Mary is the mother of all the living in the order of grace. St. Jerome puts the difference rather succinctly when he writes “death through Eve, life through Mary.”

Other examples of types of Mary in the Old Testament includes: Sarah, Deborah, Miriam, Judith, and Esther. Esther was especially an intercessor who gave of herself in her role as queen. Mary, in her role of Queen Mother, totally fulfills that intercessory role that expanded in scope to include both the Jewish people and all nations.

We don’t have to stick to the Old Testament to find types of Mary and in fact there are a plethora of women saints who in their devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary came to resemble her in her obedience and love of Jesus.

It is one of the ironies of modern society that the Catholic Church is so often attacked as oppressing women while at the same time being attacked for talking so much about the Blessed Virgin. That the Church which from the beginning has recognized the role of women saints is somehow misogynous. The Church that boasts of the genius of St. Augustine and side by side the role of his mother St. Monica.

Mary is the greatest among women and really is the “solitary boast” for both men and women. Mary is blessed among women and the Church is also blessed with many great women. As Blessed John Paul II wrote in his “Letter to Women“:

“In this vast domain of service, the Church’s two-thousand-year history, for all its historical conditioning, has truly experienced the “genius of woman”; from the heart of the Church there have emerged women of the highest calibre who have left an impressive and beneficial mark in history. I think of the great line of woman martyrs, saints and famous mystics. In a particular way I think of Saint Catherine of Siena and of Saint Teresa of Avila, whom Pope Paul VI of happy memory granted the title of Doctors of the Church. And how can we overlook the many women, inspired by faith, who were responsible for initiatives of extraordinary social importance, especially in serving the poorest of the poor? The life of the Church in the Third Millennium will certainly not be lacking in new and surprising manifestations of “the feminine genius”.”

–

Jeff Miller is the man behind the humor and insight at The Curt Jester. He also keeps us all on our toes on Twitter as @CurtJester. He’s a former atheist who’s now Catholic. He has done such amazing and useful stuff as the WikiCatechism and the Weekly Benedict in e-book format. I have a secret hope that he will write a book of Catholic humor someday, but not if it means he’ll stop blogging.

icon credit: Fr. Theodore Jurievicz, Sign of the Theotokos Ortodox Church, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
from Women’s Orthodox Ministries & Education Network

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Jeff Miller, prayer, Virgin Mary

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: THOU

April 5, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

A reflection on the word “THOU”

By Julie Davis

I reel off the Hail Mary like a pro these days. Twelve years ago, as a newly fledged convert, I was concentrating so hard on the overall prayer and meditation that I never gave smaller words like “thou” a second thought.

Thinking about it now, I realize that “thou” is anything but a small word. In fact, it may be one of the most important words in the Hail Mary.

“Thou” is the intimate, familiar form of the word “you” from Old English. English used to be just like like French and Spanish with both a formal and familiar form of the word “you.” I would have said “you” to my boss but called my husband “thou.” (Interesting side note: “thou” is the singular of “ye” so I would have called my family “ye” as in “Ye all get in the car right now or we’ll be late!”)

We think of “thou” as Biblical language because when William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the 1500s, he was trying to maintain the singular and plural distinctions found in the Hebrew and Greek originals. The King James version followed suit but everyday language was changing to use “you” exclusively for both singular and plural, familiar and formal settings. The Bible, therefore, became the last stronghold of ye, thee, thy, thine, and thou.

As interesting as that is, when I think of “Blessed art thou among women” it is as if I hear God tenderly speaking with great love through his messenger, the angel Gabriel. Thee, thou, thy are everywhere in the prayer.

When I say those intimate, personal forms of “you” am I speaking to Mary as my mother, my sister in Christ, my fellow disciple? The words from are personal. How personal is my relationship?

Like Sarah, the Hail Mary is my “go to” prayer in times of anxiety, stress, and even when I’m just casting around for a prayer to say off the cuff. That’s a bit odd, actually, because one of the things I struggle with is my lack of a devotion to Mary. Oh, I appreciate her role, example, and life. In fact, I owe her a great debt of gratitude for pointing me toward a retreat that was a turning point for me. I just don’t turn to her the way that others do.

Looking at the tenderness of “thou” in this prayer, though, it occurs to me that it would behoove* me to think more about every word and let them draw me closer to Christ’s mother, and mine. That is something I will be meditating every time the Hail Mary passes my lips.

*Behoove. Now there’s an Old English word for you. Mirriam Webster tells us: Middle English behoven, from Old English behōfian, from behōf. First Known Use: before 12th century. (Not that I’m a word geek or anything. Oh no.)

–

Julie Davis is an author, blogger, podcaster, and dear friend. Not only is she the prolific blogger at Happy Catholic, but she’ll get you drooling with the good stuff at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen. She keeps my ears happy with her Forgotten Classics podcast and I’m a big fan of A Good Story Is Hard to Find, too. Her book, Happy Catholic: Glimpses of God in Everyday Life, is a must-read.

image credit: MorgueFile