The last of this short series, and to some of my readers this might cause a sigh of relief. I do urge you to try some of these, and this one most certainly. Take the time to really listen to it, and you will find beauty in there. It is beauty of a different world, a beauty of bygone ages.
Ave Maria is the invocation of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In Catholic belief this means she is the mother of God. The greeting in full is: “Hail [Mary], full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb“. This is taken from the two verses in the gospel of Luke where Mary is greeted first by the angel announcing her pregnancy, and second where she is greeted by Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.
I put Mary in brackets, because in the original (Koine) Greek version of the bible, the name is not there. And this is only the beginning of a lot of changes in the invocation. Before 1050 there is no proof of this being used as a devotional phrase, after that time it became more important. The current wording is mostly constructed in the 16th century, partly by friar Girolamo Savonarola and with a star role for the Dutch preacher Petrus Canisius.
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.
This recording has:
Je vous salue, Marie, Pleine de grace. Le Seigneur est avec vous Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes. Alléluia