In a bucolic village in Palestine called Nazareth, there lived a Galilean Jewish peasant girl by the name of Mary. Tradition has it that she was the daughter of St’s Anne and Joachim.
Mary was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter [i] from the same area. The Gospel of Luke begins the account of Mary’s life with the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary: [ii]
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said:
“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” … And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. [iii]
Even though this could have meant a huge scandal, Joseph bravely took Mary into his house and treated the infant Jesus as his own.
Although understandably apprehensive at first, Mary became fully aware of the gravitas and the enormity of the task given to her by God.
Mary – Full of Grace
The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is a creature and NOT a divine being [iv] as so many fundamentalists would have you believe of Catholic belief and practice. This is an important concept, needed when trying to grasp the place of our blessed mother in the scheme of things.
But, though a creature, Mary occupies a unique place in the history of humankind. God chose Mary from the depths of all time and eternity, to be the willing receiver of the Holy Spirit and to bear His Son—the Salvation of man!
It is to this uniqueness that the Archangel Gabriel, at the Annunciation, addresses Mary using the phraseology (in Luke’s Greek):
Chaire, kecharitōmenē, ho kyrios meta sou!
Pronounced: key-car-it-oh-may-nay
Translated as: Hail, "Full of Grace", the Lord is with you!
Or in Latin: Áve, grā́tiā plḗna, Dóminus tḗcum!
To quote Greenwell: [v]
Kecharitōmenē is who Mary is, and not only what she has.
She is Kecharitōmenē as a result of that "singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race,"
… ‘all generations will call me blessed…’ says Mary, and rightly so, for such an honour has never been bestowed upon any creature before, since and certainly, ever will be again. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that this honour is singularly unique in all of the history of humanity, bar the incarnation itself! [vi]
What the Angel Gabriel wants to communicate to Mary and to us is that, in the word Kecharitōmenē, Mary has a unique name, a unique title, a unique role in sacred history, and so—though human—is a unique being in the economy of salvation.
Mary is she whose very name, whose very title, whose very office, whose very person is to have been endowed with grace in anticipation of her role as Mother of God and Mother of the Church.[vii]
- This biopic on Mary will be concluded in the next post.
Notes
[i] Carpenter was probably a misnomer – Joseph would more likely be know as a ‘tekton’, The Ancient Greek noun tektōn (τέκτων) is a common term for an artisan/craftsman, in particular a carpenter, woodworker, mason, builder or teacher engineer. (Wikipedia contributors, 2019)
[ii] (Wikipedia contributors, 2019)
[iii] (The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, 2006, pp. Lk. 1:26-31)
[iv] “God sent forth his Son,” but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free cooperation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, “a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary” (Catholic Church, 2000, p. CCC 488)
[v] (Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq., 2013)
[vi] I have excluded Jesus in His humanity, who is our Lord and Saviour because of His hypostasis. ( (Wikipedia contributors, 2019, p. Hypostasis)
[vii] (Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq., 2013)
Bibliography
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Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq. (2013, March 13). Hail Mary: Kecharitomene, A Unique Word for a Unique Lady. Retrieved September 22, 2019, from Catholic Online: https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=50095
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Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd ed. ed.). (U. S. Conference, Ed.) Washington DC: Libreria Editrice. Retrieved April 04, 2019
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OrthodoxWiki contributors. (2019, July 2). Theotokos. Retrieved July 30, 2019, from OrthodoxWiki: https://orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Theotokos&oldid=126811
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The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version (Second Catholic Edition ed.). (2006). San Francisco, USA: Ignatius Press. Retrieved July 29, 2019
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, June 10). Hypostasis (philosophy and religion). Retrieved August 10, 2019, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypostasis_(philosophy_and_religion)&oldid=901252076
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, July 30). Mary, mother of Jesus. Retrieved July 30, 2019, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary,_mother_of_Jesus&oldid=908491530
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, August 05). Tektōn. Retrieved August 10, 2019, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tekt%C5%8Dn&oldid=909461853
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, June 5). Theotokos. Retrieved July 30, 2019, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theotokos&oldid=900475991
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, July 29). Veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church. Retrieved July 30, 2019, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_Mary_in_the_Catholic_Church
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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, July 12). Visitation (Christianity). Retrieved July 30, 2019, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Visitation_(Christianity)&oldid=905878464
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