Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you!
Gabriel says to Mary, “Hail, full of grace! the Lord is with you.” What sort of greeting is this? Nowhere else in scripture is someone greeted as Mary has been greeted.
Hail! says Gabriel. This word, chaire (χαῖρε), is a greeting of joy, used in the Old Testament when the prophets speak of the coming of a Messiah. The prophet Zechariah writes:
Exult greatly (χαῖρε; Hail!), O daughter Zion!
Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
Behold: your king is coming to you,
a just savior is he,
Humble, and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
– Zechariah 9:9
Gabriel, one of the great archangels, most certainly knows such things. In this single word, he foreshadows all that he is to reveal to our Blessed Mother: that through her the prophecies of a Messiah, of a Christ, will soon be fulfilled.
Gabriel addresses our Blessed Mother not by her name, but as Full of Grace, κεχαριτωμένη. This word, κεχαριτωμένη, means full of grace but also means she is the one who has been filled through God’s special favor with grace. She is not filled with grace just now, but she has through all her life been full of grace. This is how our Mother is known by the angels: the one who full of grace, favored by God. She is the only human in scripture whom angels address by her title. This is how St. Luke sees fit to introduce her to us. There is a virgin named Mary who is filled with grace through the favor of God. Even in this title, we see something special about Mary: sin has no power over her, for she has been filled with grace from the moment of her conception.1 Sin comes from the law, but those who live in the grace of God are not under the law.2
The Lord is with you, Gabriel says. This is, maybe, not even necessary to say. She who is filled with grace is, of course, already living her life in union with the Son, even if she does not yet know that she will bear him to the world. But soon, the Lord will be with her in a new way.
Mary, who was conceived without sin and lived her life full of grace, was shaped by the father before all time to be the most holy and perfect vessel to give human flesh to his Son. As the mother of the Christ, she is also the Mother of the Church: for the Church is the Body of Christ. The Church is perfectly exemplified in our Blessed Mother. Mary, conceived without sin, brought God into the world. She never turned away from her son. She pondered his words in her heart. And she bore his body into the world. The Church, the Body of Christ living in a world full of sin, strives to ponder the word of God in her heart and to bring him into the world, just as Mary did [does?].
We are invited to join in this work here, at this Mass. As we gather in this Church as the Body of Christ, we ponder the sacred texts and the mysteries of God in our hearts. We receive his grace, most especially through the Eucharist. We then bear him, the Lord who is truly with us into the world, out to all the world.
Mary, full of grace and conceived without sin, pray for us!
Homily for the Immaculate Conception
Scriptures (1962 Missal): Proverbs 8:22-35; Luke 1:26-28
Scriptures (Modern Missal): Genesis 3:9-15, 20; Psalms 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4; Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12; Luke 1:26-38