It is a misconception that the Hail Mary
is only a Catholic prayer.

For much of the early church, it was a prayer that all recognized and loved because it is the announcement of the arrival of the Lord. The Hail Mary is the recitation of both Luke 1:28 and 1:42. The latter are the words by Elizabeth stating: “blessed are thou among women and blessed is thy fruit of thy womb Jesus.” The last misconception is that it’s a prayer to Mary but it is not. It is a petition to her to “pray for us” to her son Jesus. This comes from the Old Testament book of 1 King where Queen Bathsheba brings a petition, entrusted to her, to King Solomon, the son of David. To which King Solomon, grants the request before even hearing it because it comes from the lips of his own mother:
own lives.

1 Kings 2:20: ” I have just one small request of you,” She said, “Do not deny me. “Make your request my mother,” The king replied, ” for I will not deny you.”

The Rosary is walking side by side with Christ throughout His earthly life through the eyes of the only person who witnessed his whole life from beginning to end, his mother. This is done by meditating on specific mysteries assigned to different days of the week. A mystery of the rosary is defined as a specific event in the life of Christ that contains an infinite number of hidden fruits revealed through meditation and prayer. The original rosary is divided into 15 mysteries and 5 more were added recently making it a total of 20 mysteries. Each day of the week is dedicated to honoring and meditating on 5 of those mysteries. While the verbal aspect may seem repetitive it is far from it, each time the mind is uncovering hidden fruits in the life of Christ and doing so by honoring it with the prayer that brought Him down from the heavens and united Him with humanity. This effectively changed the entire fabric of reality and our existence. Similarly, this prayer will bring to birth the hidden mysteries of Christ in our own lives.

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