“We can use the Hail Mary as a meditation in which we
recite what grace God has given her. Second, we should
add a wish that everyone may know and respect her …
He who has no faith is advised to refrain from saying the
Hail Mary.”
4
Fourth objection: “Why Ten Hail Marys and only one Our Father! Is
Mary ten times more important for Catholics?”
No, she is not. There is only one God for Catholics and He is infinitely
“more important” than any creature, even one as great as the Virgin Mary.
Listen to the words of St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort (1673-1716),
perhaps the greatest Marian devotee in the Church’s history:
“I avow, with all the Church, that Mary, being a mere creature that
has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with
His Infinite Majesty less than an atom; or rather, she is nothing at all,
because only He is ‘He who is’.”
5
It is erroneous to look at the Our Father and Hail Mary as if they were
ultimately prayers to two different persons. The Our Father is a prayer
directly to God the Father through Christ our Lord. The Hail Mary is a
prayer indirectly to God the Father through the intercession of the Virgin
Mary: “…pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Who does the Virgin Mary pray to in heaven but God the Father; and
through whom does she go to the Father but her Son Christ our Lord? If
those in heaven are “a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) then why is it
wrong for Catholics to ask the Virgin Mary to pray for them, given that St.
Paul could ask for the prayers of his fellow earth-bound Christians who yet
did not possess the vision of God (Rom. 15:30; Heb. 13:18)?
Lastly, as the Holy Rosary is a devotion honoring and invoking the Virgin
Mary it should not be so surprising that it has such a pronounced Marian
flavor to it. The fact that there are ten Hail Marys also gives ample time to
4
Weimer, The Works of Luther, Pelikan, Concordia, vol. 43, pp. 39-41.
5
St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, Ch. 1, # 14.
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