Hail Mary

The Ave Maria, Hail Mary, is the most frequently recited of Catholic prayers addressed through Mary, and the repeated prayer of the rosary, in which it is said in sets punctuated by the Lord's Prayer. Its opening is scriptural, joining the greeting of the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation to the words of Elizabeth at the Visitation, both from the Gospel of Luke; to this a later petition was added, asking Mary to pray for sinners now and at the hour of death, which reached its fixed form in the sixteenth century.

The prayer thus grew from a scriptural salutation into an intercession, expressing the Catholic and Orthodox understanding of Mary as the mother of Christ who prays for the faithful. Recited in vast repetition in the rosary, whose structure pairs the prayer with meditation on episodes in the lives of Christ and Mary, the Ave Maria is among the most characteristic devotions of the Western church.