“Most highly favored, Lady,” was part of the refrain we sang in the praise of Mary in the hymn preceding the Holy Gospel. We did so, in the words of the hymn, as “Christian folk through the world will ever say.” This moment has been so taken up by the church in the hymnography, iconography, and artwork in all mediums. The Annunciation is an event in human history of inexhaustible meaning and implication. And so I want to reflect upon it, and especially upon Gabriel’s first words to Mary. And I do so in light of my recent preaching on how S. John Baptist embodies Advent because through him is seen clearly the emphasis Advent has: to watch, to be in expectation, to prepare one’s heart for Christ Who is The Coming One. Mary is another Saint who, like John, embodies Advent, and teaches us about Christ.
“Most highly favored lady” paraphrases the angelic greeting of the archangel Gabriel to Mary, “Hail, Mary, full of grace” which can be translated “Hail, O favored one.” The difference between those two translations attest to the difficulty scripture translators have had with this greeting, and how to properly translate the original Greek of the angelic greeting in a way that captures what it is really saying: to capture its fullness and nuance. The first thing to observe is that this greeting is far more than a “sup, girl!” or “hey, how’s your golf game, my sister?” or “Mary, wonderful quiche last week!” Rather, these are heavenly words from God delivered by an angel, because angels are messengers of the heavenly word of Our Lord. Because it is in this moment of the Annunciation that we first encounter Mary in Scripture, how she is described is how to properly understand the entirety of her place in the economy of grace, her place in God’s plan of salvation, and who she is according to God.
The word for “Hail” in Greek is “chaire.” This word directly means “rejoice,” and as scripture scholars point out, it is a gesture of greeting that would have been highly unbecoming within Jewish rabbical culture. That is because it is a very reverent and courteous greeting, such as a queen would receive. In ancient custom it corresponds as well to the Hebrew greeting of shalom, which means peace. A fuller sense of “Hail” would be something like, “Rejoice in peace my queen!” or even, “Be at peace my queen!” And this is fitting because there is no one else in the Bible who is addressed in the same way as Mary is addressed: never a man, and never a woman, save one: Mary. It is also worth noting that the word “chaire” is the root of the English words chair and throne, and cathedral, itself based on the word “cathedra” which means throne upon which the bishop sits. Already we have a sense of the high honor and dignity of the angelic greeting, and a sense of who Mary is: someone the highest angels deeply respect. And as bishops sit upon the cathedra, so does Jesus sit upon the lap of His Mother.
After this, Gabriel addresses Mary as “kecharitomene,” which is “O favored one,” or “full of grace.” I say addresses because biblical scholars point out that the way Gabriel speaks is as one would say a person’s name. The word “O” indicates that. In other words, Gabriel utters not a quality of Mary, as an adjective—a quality or attribute such as beautiful, glorious, or radiant. The Church certainly sees Mary in all those ways, but Gabriel does something different in his greeting: he is saying her name. Mary is “she who is the fullness of grace,” or “she who is the fullness of God’s favor.” Or to use more words, Mary is “she who is completely, perfectly, enduringly has always been endowed with the fullness of grace and heavenly benediction.” And the grammar says the same: the word “kecharitomene” is a past perfect participle, which indicates that Mary has always been the fullness of grace and favor, and was created by God in that way. Some people interpret this as a moment when Mary is transformed, changed, from a state of less grace to a state of more grace. But that is contrary to what Gabriel, the messenger of heaven, is saying. Completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace is Mary’s identity, and she has never been less than that, even in her mother’s womb, even her conception. I want to stress this is simply the meaning of the biblical words “chaire kecharitomene,”—“Hail, full of grace,” or in the longer, clumsier rendering, “Be at peace, my queen, you who are completely, perfectly, and enduringly endowed with the fullness of God’s grace.” This is the scriptural way to understand Mary.
There is a bit more to say about “grace.” In Greek the word is charis, and its stem is part of “kecharitomene” in the angelic greeting, as well as the word “eucharist,” which means “thanksgiving.” The beginning of the definition of “grace” is that it is God’s favor towards us, and that is part of the reason our hymn addresses Mary as “most highly favored lady.” But there is more to the definition. To fill it out the scriptural meaning we recognize that God’s favor is always His gift. And His gift is the Holy Spirit. And so Mary is the fullness of God’s favor, the fullness of God’s gift: she who is full of the Holy Spirit. And yet we know that the Holy Spirit bears witness to Christ, bears witness to Jesus Who Himself offered on the Cross and that His gift of Himself on the Cross passes into the Sacred Humanity of the sacramental life which we receive through the Seven Sacraments. And we also know that God’s gift of Himself is love, for His nature is love; and His gift is true peace, the heavenly peace which passes all understanding made aware to the apostles in the Upper Room on the first Easter Sunday evening and through them to us. Ultimately, grace, which is the Holy Spirit Who reveals Christ, is the source of Christian life and is participation in the divine life. Grace is the heavenly reality, and Mary is full of grace: so she is full of the heavenly reality, and has always been so. The heavenly reality of grace, of peace, of love, of eucharist, of giving thanks. And all of the gift of God fills us, and so she, in that sense, is God’s gift to the Church, that gift that bears the Eternal Word of the Father, her Son and His, Jesus Christ. It is by understanding Mary scripturally that she becomes known in the Church as the Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels, the Mother of the Church, and the Theotokos, which means “bearer of God.”
This is why Christians can praise Mary without reservation, and should, with “all generations [that] laud and honor her.” To do so is to think and act scripturally. The fullness of heavenly reality of grace, of peace, of love, of eucharist is who she is, entirely by the initiative of God, who made this wonderful creature gloriously, mysteriously, and joyfully. Her whole life within the Holy Spirit was lived to be an example to others of how to love and follow her Son Jesus Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. She is an example of watching in expectation, and perhaps a better one than John Baptist, because for Mary it was over 30 years of watching in expectation, for Her Son to reveal Himself to His disciples as Gabriel had reveal Christ to her. There is so much of Mary we can imitate: her humility, her obedient listening with an open and faithful heart, and her Yes to God, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy Word. Because when God seeks to lead us and we accept His invitation, our Yes echoes Mary’s yes, and proclaims with Mary the greatness of the Lord; that because of our living relationship with her, the Holy Spirit Who filled her fills us.
Today we ask the intercession of Blessed Mary, Ever-Virgin; that she is who is the Mother of God pray for us; that we, like her, may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
On Gabriel's Manner of Addressing Mary