A well-prayed Hail Mary gives us more thanks than a thousand recitations without reflection
Millions of Catholics pray the Hail Mary frequently. Sometimes in a hurry, without even thinking about the words they are saying. This text will help us to pray the Hail Mary with more fervor and more awareness of its depth.
A well-prayed Hail Mary fills Our Lady’s heart with joy and grants us great graces. A well-prayed Hail Mary gives us more thanks than a thousand recitations without reflection.
The Ave Maria is a gold mine that we can always take out and never run out. Is it difficult to pray the Hail Mary? All we have to do is know its value and understand its meaning.
Saint Jerome tells us that “the truths contained in the Hail Mary are so sublime, so wonderful, that no man or angel could fully understand them.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, prince of theologians, “the wisest of the saints and the holiest of the wise,” as Leo XIII called it, preached on the Hail Mary for 40 days in Rome, inflaming hearts of ecstasy.
The learned Jesuit Suárez declared that, when he died, he would willingly exchange all the books he had written, all the works he had done, for the merit of a single Hail Mary prayed devoutly.
Saint Matilda, who loved the Virgin very much, endeavored one day to compose a beautiful prayer in her honor. The Virgin appeared to him with these golden letters on his chest: “Hail Mary, full of grace”. And he said: “My daughter, no prayer that you could compose would give me the joy that Ave Maria gives me.”
Once, Our Lord asked Saint Francis to give him something. The saint replied: “Lord, I can not give you anything that I have not already given you: all my love.” Jesus smiled and said: “Francisco, give me everything again, and you will give me the same joy”. In the same way, our beloved Mother receives every Hail Mary we offer her with the same joy with which she heard that greeting from the mouth of the archangel Gabriel on the day of the Annunciation, when she became the Mother of the Son of God.
St. Bernard and many other saints emphasized that Mary never refused to hear the prayers of her children on earth. Why, sometimes, do we not embrace these consoling truths? Why do we reject the love and consolation that the sweet Mother of God offers us?
Hugh Lammer was a dedicated Protestant who preached strongly against the Catholic Church. One day, he found an explanation of the Hail Mary and he was so enchanted that he began to pray it every day. All his anti-Catholic aversion was disappearing thereafter. He not only became one: he became a priest and professor of theology in Wroclaw.
Many stories are told like this: a priest stands beside the bed of a man who is dying and desperate because of his sins and lack of faith. The man refuses to confess. As a last resort, the priest helps him pray at least the Hail Mary. Little by little, the poor man makes a sincere confession and dies in the grace of God.
Saint Gertrude tells us in his book “Revelations” that, when we thank God for the graces He has given to any saint, we become participants in those same graces. Now, what thanks then do we not receive when we pray the Hail Mary thanking God for all the extraordinary graces He bestowed upon His holy blessed Mother?
“A Hail Mary said without sensitive fervor, but with a genuine desire in a moment of aridity, has much more value than a whole rosary recited in the middle of consolation, ” Our Lady told Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero.
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