06/26/2026
The Hail Mary is often accused of being โunbiblicalโ by people who have never actually listened to its first lines.
Catholic prayer does not begin by pushing Mary into the Gospel. It begins by receiving what the Gospel already says about her.
The first half of the prayer is drawn from Luke. Gabriel greets Mary; Elizabeth blesses her; and Luke makes clear that Elizabeth speaks while filled with the Holy Spirit. So when Catholics say, โBlessed are you among women,โ we are not flattering Mary with a medieval invention. We are repeating a Spirit-filled blessing recorded in Scripture.
The uncomfortable part, for some, is the second half: โHoly Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.โ But that line is not a rival gospel. It is Christian logic. If Jesus is truly God made flesh, then the woman who bore Him is rightly called Mother of God, not because she created His divinity, but because the child born from her is one divine Person.
The Council of Ephesus solemnly defended that truth in 431, but Luke had already placed the seed in Elizabethโs question: โWhy is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
"There is also a historical detail worth noticing. The John Rylands Library in Manchester preserves Papyrus Rylands 470, a Greek prayer known in Latin as Sub tuum praesidium. It asks the Mother of God for protection. C. H. Roberts published it in 1938 and tentatively dated it to the fourth century, though later scholars have debated the date and some argue for a later period. That caution matters. Faith does not need sloppy history.
But even with that debate, the witness remains powerful: early Christians were not allergic to Marian prayer. They knew the difference between worship and intercession. They adored Christ, and they asked His Mother to pray.The Hail Mary is not a detour from Jesus. It places His name at the center and teaches the believer to approach Him with the words of Scripture, the faith of the Church, and the humility of a sinner who knows he needs prayer.
