On Friday, we celebrated the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary. It was also a First Friday, which means, in the Sacred Heart devotion, the devotees spend the day making reparation to the Sacred Heart for their sins and the sins of the whole world, go to confession (if possible) and to Mass, and focus on making acts of charity throughout the day. It is also suggested we make five visits to the Blessed Sacrament, each for a different intention stated in the devotion, but these intentions can be offered up in one visit if your state of life limits you from coming to the church that frequently throughout the day. In the spirit of prayer, we are to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, say the rosary, renew our consecration, and spend half an hour to an hour in meditation on the Sacred Heart. Seems like an awful lot, doesn't it? It really isn't if you make the time to do it, and the benefits of honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus are overwhelming! (See this link for the 12 Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: http://www.sacredheart.com/PromisesOfTheSacredHeart.htm)
There is another fortunate and fitting reason why this feast day of Our Lady falls on a Friday this year. Traditionally, the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary are prayed on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the Passion of Christ is closely tied to the Sacred Heart devotion. We meditate on the wound the Heart received when it was pierced by the lance on Calvary. Commonly, you will see images of the Sacred Heart with the Cross mounted on the top, the Crown of Thorns encircling the heart, and on the one side an open wound dripping blood.
I went to Mass that morning at 6:30 at St. Joseph's Church in Lancaster. The chapel there also has Perpetual Adoration, so I spent some time with the Lord before and after Mass. When I'm before the Blessed Sacrament, there's a common meditation I do that's written in my Sacred Heart devotional book that I would like to share here. You don't have to be a devotee to use it!
Thirty-five Salutations to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Hail, Heart of Jesus! Save me.
Hail, Heart of my Creator! Perfect me.
Hail, Heart of my Saviour! Deliver me.
Hail, Heart of my Judge! Pardon me.
Hail, Heart of my Father! Govern me.
Hail, Heart of my Spouse! Love me.
Hail, Heart of my Master! Teach me.
Hail, Heart of my King! Crown me.
Hail, Heart of my Benefactor! Enrich me.
Hail, Heart of my Pastor! Guard me.
Hail, Heart of my Friend! Caress me.
Hail, Heart of my Infant Jesus! Draw me to Thee.
Hail, Heart of Jesus, dying on the Cross! Ransom me.
Hail, Heart of Jesus! in all Thy States! Give Thyself to me.
Hail, Heart of my Brother! Dwell with me.
Hail, Heart of incomparable goodness! Pardon me.
Hail, Magnificent Heart! Shine forth in me.
Hail, Most amiable Heart! Embrace me.
Hail, Charitable Heart! Operate in me.
Hail, Merciful Heart! Answer for me.
Hail, Most Humble Heart! Repose in me.
Hail, Most Patient Heart! Bear with me.
Hail, Most Faithful Heart! Atone for me.
Hail, Most Admirable and Most Worth Heart! Bless me.
Hail, Peaceful Heart! Calm me.
Hail, Most Desirable and Excellent Heart! Enrapture me.
Hail, Illustrious and Perfect Heart! Ennoble me.
Hail, Sacred Heart, Precious Balm! Preserve me.
Hail, Most Holy and Profitable Heart! Make me better.
Hail, Blessed Heart, Medicine and Remedy of our evils! Cure me.
Hail, Heart of Jesus, Solace of the afflicted! Console me.
Hail, Most loving Heart, burning Furnace! Consume me.
Hail, Heart of Jesus, Model of perfection! Enlighten me.
Hail, Heart of Jesus, Origin of all happiness! Fortify me.
Hail, Heart of eternal blessings! Call me to Thee.
I usually say each line and then spend some time meditating on what I'm asking the Heart of my Lord to do for me, and how He has been able to do these for me. The Lord's mercy abounds for us, and He is waiting to pour forth this mercy upon all those who ask for it. All we have to do is simply pray for His mercy and trust in it. His love is an undying, fiery furnace in which all of us should be consume, for it is not a fire that destroys, but a fire that purifies and unites us to Christ. So, may we burn for love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and be immersed in His mercy!
Laus Deo!
Showing posts with label Mary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary. Show all posts
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary
Earlier in the month, I mentioned in one of my blog posts the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, and I also mention it in my profile. One of my friends, in seeing this, asked me what it was about, and I told her I would discuss it in a post. This amazing devotion, which at first I was wary of, has changed my life since I recited my consecration this past March on the feast of the Annunciation. Let me tell you my story on how I came to this devotion and a little bit about St. Louis de Monfort's Total Consecration.
Last summer, after graduating college and transitioning into the "real world", I met a new group of young adults through the Lancaster Young Adult Catholics. The leader of this group, Lisa, was a vibrant young women who had a faith that blew me away and filled me with joy. One day, while I was with her, she asked me if I had ever heard of the Total Consecration. I said that I had no idea what it was, and then she proceeded to tell me all about it. All I heard was a month-long preparation period which included certain prayers, recitation of the rosary, and a consecration prayer at the end of the of the preparation in which you handed over your entire life to Mary, who would give it over to her Son, Jesus. I found it interesting, but I was terrified at the word "consecration". I felt like I was binding myself to something that I wouldn't be able to "get out of" if I wanted to. At the time, my devotion to the Sacred Heart was still flourishing, and I was reciting a similar consecration prayer in which I handed my heart over to Jesus' Heart. For some reason, though, this total consecration was instilling a certain fear in me that made me want nothing to do with it.
Mary was persistent, though.
I talked to some of my other, new Catholic friends about it, and they knew of it also, giving it high praise and talking about it with humble reverence. Again, I still debated within myself whether or not to tack on another devotion to my prayer life and have it interfere with my devotion to the Sacred Heart. A few months went by and it was getting close to the end of summer. Over those months, I convinced myself that I should do the consecration. I asked Lisa for her copy of the book, Preparation for Total Consecration according to St. Louis Marie de Montfort, and she happily let me borrow it. Yet, more months passed by, and I put it off and put it off, until I had to give the book back to her because other people were waiting to use it also. Again, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Then, something finally changed. Into winter, around the time of the Advent or Christmas season, I volunteered to be the lector for a special anointing Mass that was held at my church for the sick and infirm. At my parish, the lector has the privilege of staying in the sanctuary throughout the entire Mass, so we are closely involved in witnessing the bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Christ. After receiving communion at that Mass, I returned to my chair and knelt on a cushion on the marble floor. While I was kneeling there in prayer, I decided to give myself over to Mary and proceed with the total consecration.
I never looked back after that Mass. I went online and bought a copy of the book and selected the Feast of the Annunciation to recite the consecration prayer.
Now, what is the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary? It is a 33-day preparation where a person spends time in prayer and reading through exercises and meditations, discovering oneself and discerning the roles of Mary and Jesus in his or her life. The 33 days are broken down into four parts: Spirit of the World (12 days), Knowledge of Self (seven days), Knowledge of Our Lady (seven days), and Knowledge of Christ (seven days). It is suggested that the person picks a major Marian feast day (which would be the 34th day) on which to go to confession, attend Mass and receive the Eucharist, and then recite the consecration prayer at the end of the book. The book gives suggestions of feast days and the day in which to start the preparation before that feast day. Also, after the prayer, there is a line where the person signs his or her name and dates it, so that he or she remembers his or her commitment and the day of consecration. Then, each year after that, the person goes back through the exercises to renew his or her consecration.
This devotion truly graced my life. To be quite honest, I knew the fear I was trying to overcome in doing this consecration. I was afraid of the grace that might flow from the prayers and from handing my life, my actions, my thoughts, and all my possessions over to Mary; which is described as a kind of "holy slavery" by some of the saints (we'll talk about that more later). I was struggling with so many things at the time, but there were also many things that I was content with, and I was afraid that grace was going to turn my life upside down. Finally, through the Eucharist, I trusted in Jesus to have His mother lead me to Him ever more closely. She wants to give me and you over to His care and place us within His Heart.
This is a totally voluntary act, but I promise you, your life will change for the better. Mary does not seek us for her own, but she turns us all to her Son. I also found that it has helped my devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament, so my first devotion has benefited from it.
I recited my consecration prayer on March 25th, 2011, the Feast of the Annunciation. As a final act and reminder of my "holy slavery", I took a steel link chain and put it on my wrist. It does not come off by itself and the only way to take it off is to use a pair of pliers to bend one of the links or have it rust off.
This is common among those who do the consecration to have a reminder that they are working towards a higher goal, and that the things God has blessed them with are no longer theirs.
I pray that you may consider this devotion and see how Mary can lead you to her Son!
Last summer, after graduating college and transitioning into the "real world", I met a new group of young adults through the Lancaster Young Adult Catholics. The leader of this group, Lisa, was a vibrant young women who had a faith that blew me away and filled me with joy. One day, while I was with her, she asked me if I had ever heard of the Total Consecration. I said that I had no idea what it was, and then she proceeded to tell me all about it. All I heard was a month-long preparation period which included certain prayers, recitation of the rosary, and a consecration prayer at the end of the of the preparation in which you handed over your entire life to Mary, who would give it over to her Son, Jesus. I found it interesting, but I was terrified at the word "consecration". I felt like I was binding myself to something that I wouldn't be able to "get out of" if I wanted to. At the time, my devotion to the Sacred Heart was still flourishing, and I was reciting a similar consecration prayer in which I handed my heart over to Jesus' Heart. For some reason, though, this total consecration was instilling a certain fear in me that made me want nothing to do with it.
Mary was persistent, though.
I talked to some of my other, new Catholic friends about it, and they knew of it also, giving it high praise and talking about it with humble reverence. Again, I still debated within myself whether or not to tack on another devotion to my prayer life and have it interfere with my devotion to the Sacred Heart. A few months went by and it was getting close to the end of summer. Over those months, I convinced myself that I should do the consecration. I asked Lisa for her copy of the book, Preparation for Total Consecration according to St. Louis Marie de Montfort, and she happily let me borrow it. Yet, more months passed by, and I put it off and put it off, until I had to give the book back to her because other people were waiting to use it also. Again, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Then, something finally changed. Into winter, around the time of the Advent or Christmas season, I volunteered to be the lector for a special anointing Mass that was held at my church for the sick and infirm. At my parish, the lector has the privilege of staying in the sanctuary throughout the entire Mass, so we are closely involved in witnessing the bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Christ. After receiving communion at that Mass, I returned to my chair and knelt on a cushion on the marble floor. While I was kneeling there in prayer, I decided to give myself over to Mary and proceed with the total consecration.
I never looked back after that Mass. I went online and bought a copy of the book and selected the Feast of the Annunciation to recite the consecration prayer.
Now, what is the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary? It is a 33-day preparation where a person spends time in prayer and reading through exercises and meditations, discovering oneself and discerning the roles of Mary and Jesus in his or her life. The 33 days are broken down into four parts: Spirit of the World (12 days), Knowledge of Self (seven days), Knowledge of Our Lady (seven days), and Knowledge of Christ (seven days). It is suggested that the person picks a major Marian feast day (which would be the 34th day) on which to go to confession, attend Mass and receive the Eucharist, and then recite the consecration prayer at the end of the book. The book gives suggestions of feast days and the day in which to start the preparation before that feast day. Also, after the prayer, there is a line where the person signs his or her name and dates it, so that he or she remembers his or her commitment and the day of consecration. Then, each year after that, the person goes back through the exercises to renew his or her consecration.
This devotion truly graced my life. To be quite honest, I knew the fear I was trying to overcome in doing this consecration. I was afraid of the grace that might flow from the prayers and from handing my life, my actions, my thoughts, and all my possessions over to Mary; which is described as a kind of "holy slavery" by some of the saints (we'll talk about that more later). I was struggling with so many things at the time, but there were also many things that I was content with, and I was afraid that grace was going to turn my life upside down. Finally, through the Eucharist, I trusted in Jesus to have His mother lead me to Him ever more closely. She wants to give me and you over to His care and place us within His Heart.
This is a totally voluntary act, but I promise you, your life will change for the better. Mary does not seek us for her own, but she turns us all to her Son. I also found that it has helped my devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament, so my first devotion has benefited from it.
I recited my consecration prayer on March 25th, 2011, the Feast of the Annunciation. As a final act and reminder of my "holy slavery", I took a steel link chain and put it on my wrist. It does not come off by itself and the only way to take it off is to use a pair of pliers to bend one of the links or have it rust off.
This is common among those who do the consecration to have a reminder that they are working towards a higher goal, and that the things God has blessed them with are no longer theirs.
I pray that you may consider this devotion and see how Mary can lead you to her Son!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Apathy and prayer
While I was driving to work Monday morning, I was praying a rosary, and on Mondays we pray the Joyful Mysteries, which include the very beginning of Jesus' life on earth. When I got to the Nativity of the Lord, which is the third Joyful Mystery, the direction of my thoughts on this mystery caught my attention. I found myself asking, why am I not so awed by the fact that God came into this world as a helpless child? I felt my apathy creep in from the background. I just thought to myself, I can be so numb to such powerful images as the birth of Jesus, His crucifixion and death, and His resurrection. There are certain times of the year when we focus more intently on these tremendous events in the life of our Savior, but do we always need to have these times in order to appreciate them or to be awe-struck by them?
Apathy can be a slow poison that we don't even realize is destroying us on the inside, and when we do finally see it, a lot of damage has already been done. We become numb to our surroundings and to evil or shocking news, and our motivation and will to care is lacking. The devil likes to use this against us every chance he gets. I find that for certain periods of time, prayer comes easy and I feel uplifted and motivated to pray for myself and others all the time. Then, weariness sets in, and that's when the devil's hand falls upon me. I get lazy and easily forget who or what I'm praying for. The mysteries of God seem bland and uninteresting. He especially likes to get me when I am praying the rosary, because he utterly abhors when we pray rosaries since Mary has been given so much power over him. I noticed that I can do any other formal prayer without much trouble, but when it comes to a rosary, it becomes difficult, and I know that he is trying to discourage me.
Realize that apathy can be fought with constant prayer to Jesus and Mary. You can renew yourself and remain recollected every day by consecrating your day to Jesus through Mary. I learned a practice through my devotion to Mary that, as soon as you wake up in the morning, kneel on the floor and give your day over to Mary. I pray, "Blessed Mother, I consecrate my day to you, and I give all my thoughts and actions to you. I pray that you will lead to the Sacred Heart of your Son by doing the will of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen." This prayer puts me in the right disposition to be conscious of my actions and my words throughout the day. We will stumble and fall, of course, but both Jesus and Mary will be there to catch us if we ask them to be our motivation and safety net at the outset of our day.
I hope that you don't struggle with apathy as much as I do, but I pray that Jesus and Mary will be your help and guide each and every day!
Apathy can be a slow poison that we don't even realize is destroying us on the inside, and when we do finally see it, a lot of damage has already been done. We become numb to our surroundings and to evil or shocking news, and our motivation and will to care is lacking. The devil likes to use this against us every chance he gets. I find that for certain periods of time, prayer comes easy and I feel uplifted and motivated to pray for myself and others all the time. Then, weariness sets in, and that's when the devil's hand falls upon me. I get lazy and easily forget who or what I'm praying for. The mysteries of God seem bland and uninteresting. He especially likes to get me when I am praying the rosary, because he utterly abhors when we pray rosaries since Mary has been given so much power over him. I noticed that I can do any other formal prayer without much trouble, but when it comes to a rosary, it becomes difficult, and I know that he is trying to discourage me.
Realize that apathy can be fought with constant prayer to Jesus and Mary. You can renew yourself and remain recollected every day by consecrating your day to Jesus through Mary. I learned a practice through my devotion to Mary that, as soon as you wake up in the morning, kneel on the floor and give your day over to Mary. I pray, "Blessed Mother, I consecrate my day to you, and I give all my thoughts and actions to you. I pray that you will lead to the Sacred Heart of your Son by doing the will of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen." This prayer puts me in the right disposition to be conscious of my actions and my words throughout the day. We will stumble and fall, of course, but both Jesus and Mary will be there to catch us if we ask them to be our motivation and safety net at the outset of our day.
I hope that you don't struggle with apathy as much as I do, but I pray that Jesus and Mary will be your help and guide each and every day!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
A little twist on iconography...
This past Friday was my 24th birthday. It was a very enjoyable day. I received a lot of birthday wishes from people on Facebook, and it was good seeing some messages from people I hadn't heard from in a long time. We had a little celebration at work that consisted of cake and being sung to by my co-workers, which is usually happens when one of the employee's birthdays falls on a work day. It was rather amusing because I was sung to by all my male co-workers because our secretary wasn't there and she's the only other female in the office. After work, I got a call from my grandma and my mom, and in the evening, I went into downtown Lancaster with some friends to walk around Gallery Row and Queen Street for First Friday. Overall, it was a good birthday. :)
Yesterday evening, I went to eat at Pub Dunegal in Mount Joy with my closest friends, Kyle, Brian, and Sharon. They belong to the same parish as me and they work in youth ministry along with me. We've all been so busy the past few months, so we were finally able to hang out together, just the four of us, for a little birthday celebration. For my birthday, Kyle asked me to look online for pictures of some of my favorite icons to give to him because he was going to make a carving of one for me for my birthday. How was he going to do this ? Well, he's a cabinet maker/woodworker by profession, and he recently got this really awesome machine called a Carvewright. This machine is computerized and has a desktop program with it that allows you to create designs with lettering and images, and then it carves the finished design onto a piece of wood. So, I went out and found two icons, one of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and one of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He ended up using the Our Lady of Mount Carmel image, which looked like this:
The image itself is only about 300 x 386. He put the above image into the program, and here's the result:
I was blown away by it! He took this fairly small image and carved it onto an 11" x 13" piece of pine. The image also has some stain on it to bring out the deeper crevices on the image.
Now, this is NOT traditional iconography at all. Icons are painted on paper with certain, theologically-defined colors and then mounted on a piece of wood. In this case, the idea of carving the image of an icon into wood was, I thought, very intriguing. I don't think I'd keep collecting or wanting carved icons, but I thought it was such a neat idea that I had to see what it looked like.
The painting of an icon can actually a very moving, spiritual, and sacred process. In traditional iconography (which is more of an Eastern Catholic Church tradition, though icons do appear in the Western Church), the person who wants to create an icon spends a period time in retreat with prayer and fasting before starting to paint it. At this point, the person may not even know what image he or she will use in the icon, but during the retreat, the person will pray to God for inspiration on what image he or she should paint. Once an image is determined, the person will start the work and continue to be recollected in prayer since the image he or she is working on is sacred. At each brush stroke, the person says a prayer, and the most common prayer said is the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Can you imagine trying to pray a simple prayer at every stroke? In the end, it could take many months for one icon to be painted.
Of course, Kyle and I show no disrespect toward the Eastern tradition of iconography with a carving that only took six hours to create by machine. This was more of an experiment (and also a really awesome birthday gift!). I will always love traditional iconography more than anything else, and I will have to dedicate a more extensive blog post to discussing it!
Yesterday evening, I went to eat at Pub Dunegal in Mount Joy with my closest friends, Kyle, Brian, and Sharon. They belong to the same parish as me and they work in youth ministry along with me. We've all been so busy the past few months, so we were finally able to hang out together, just the four of us, for a little birthday celebration. For my birthday, Kyle asked me to look online for pictures of some of my favorite icons to give to him because he was going to make a carving of one for me for my birthday. How was he going to do this ? Well, he's a cabinet maker/woodworker by profession, and he recently got this really awesome machine called a Carvewright. This machine is computerized and has a desktop program with it that allows you to create designs with lettering and images, and then it carves the finished design onto a piece of wood. So, I went out and found two icons, one of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and one of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He ended up using the Our Lady of Mount Carmel image, which looked like this:
The image itself is only about 300 x 386. He put the above image into the program, and here's the result:
I was blown away by it! He took this fairly small image and carved it onto an 11" x 13" piece of pine. The image also has some stain on it to bring out the deeper crevices on the image.
Now, this is NOT traditional iconography at all. Icons are painted on paper with certain, theologically-defined colors and then mounted on a piece of wood. In this case, the idea of carving the image of an icon into wood was, I thought, very intriguing. I don't think I'd keep collecting or wanting carved icons, but I thought it was such a neat idea that I had to see what it looked like.
The painting of an icon can actually a very moving, spiritual, and sacred process. In traditional iconography (which is more of an Eastern Catholic Church tradition, though icons do appear in the Western Church), the person who wants to create an icon spends a period time in retreat with prayer and fasting before starting to paint it. At this point, the person may not even know what image he or she will use in the icon, but during the retreat, the person will pray to God for inspiration on what image he or she should paint. Once an image is determined, the person will start the work and continue to be recollected in prayer since the image he or she is working on is sacred. At each brush stroke, the person says a prayer, and the most common prayer said is the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Can you imagine trying to pray a simple prayer at every stroke? In the end, it could take many months for one icon to be painted.
Of course, Kyle and I show no disrespect toward the Eastern tradition of iconography with a carving that only took six hours to create by machine. This was more of an experiment (and also a really awesome birthday gift!). I will always love traditional iconography more than anything else, and I will have to dedicate a more extensive blog post to discussing it!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The Hail Mary is scriptural. What?!
So, I kind of left out introductions in my last blog post. Back at the beginning of 2009, I tried starting a blog, but I never kept up with it. I think I aspired too much to try to write extremely long and informative blog posts, but I found out it wasn't necessary to do that. Yet, with the former mentality, I lost my motivation to consistently post in my old blog. This blog is now "take two", with the mindset of some shorter posts with somewhat simple topics either based on information about the Catholic faith or my own experiences.
The Blessed Mother has increasingly become one of my favorite topics to discuss. I have great affection for Mary, for she is my spiritual mother and my mistress. Back in March of this year on the feast of the Annunciation, I completed my Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary according to St. Louis de Montfort. Mary has certainly put me to work, and I've seen the effects of how she has led me closer to her Son. Of course, the Total Consecration is a topic for a whole other post. Don't get me wrong; I struggled for a very long time with the concept of honoring Mary and praying to her for help, but God did enough work in me to accept her as the Mother of the Church and my Mother. It was only a few years ago that I really started letting this enter into my spiritual life, and I haven't looked back.
I bring up St. Louis de Montfort because I recently read one of his works called The Secret of the Rosary. He was deeply devoted to Mary and to the Rosary, and in this book he discusses how to pray the Rosary and recalls the miraculous events he's witnessed and personally experienced throughout his life. The first section of the book is devoted to the explanation and importance of the Our Father and the Haily Mary prayers that are an integral part of praying the Rosary, and I discovered in his explanations that the Hail Mary is mostly based on passages from the Gospel of Luke.
For the Catholics reading this, we all know that Mary is a hot topic of debate between us and our Protestant brothers and sisters, and even among some Catholics. There's the whole "worship of Mary" idea, and the Hail Mary could be argued as a sketchy prayer. First, Catholics do not worship Mary; we honor her as the Mother of God. She aided in the salvation of the human race by consenting to birth the Son of God; she is the first disciple; and she is the model of who we should aspire to be in holiness. Second, the Hail Mary prayer is mostly based on Scripture. When I read this in St. Louis' book, I thought, how did I not see this before? My attentiveness to the prayer was so lacking! If you do not know what the prayer is, here you go:
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst 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."
The first sentence of the prayer comes from Luke 1:28 when the angel Gabriel came to Mary in Nazareth and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" How wonderful to think that an angel could greet a human being with such a salutation! The passage continues on in verses 29 and 30 to say, "But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'" She is favored by God!
The second sentence of the prayer comes from Luke 1:42 when Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. I'll start the passage with verse 41: "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'" Elizabeth was inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself to proclaim that Mary was indeed blessed, and the child she was carry was also blessed. Mary is never praised without there being praise of Jesus.
At the end of the prayer, we are simply asking Mary to pray for us now and at the time of our death, because we need those prayers always. How could we not ask the Mother of our Lord and King to pray for us? She was the person who was closest to Jesus Christ, and she continues to be the closest person to Him. He cannot refuse the requests of His Mother. Look at the wedding feast of Cana. She went to Him and told Him that they had no more wine, and He insisted that His time had not yet come. BUT, she said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you." They went to Him for instruction, and He could not refuse.
With this in mind, may we reverently pray the Hail Mary and ask her to guide us to the Sacred Heart of her Son, Jesus!
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