Dear Virgin Mary, Are You Okay? A Protestant's Journey with the Hail Mary

Dear Virgin Mary, I Need Advice

But before we dive in, Mary, are you okay? Do you need to talk? After all, being a pregnant 12-year-old in ancient times sounds like a lot for anyone to handle. And yet, here you are, one of the most venerated figures in history, holding a unique place in the hearts of billions.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

So, here’s my dilemma: Marian veneration works for me, but only as part of a larger, eclectic spiritual practice. I mean, as the *Derry Girls* say, “the Big M” is my go-to for the Divine Feminine. Yet, the onramp to this relationship — the Hail Mary prayer — has me grappling with some big questions.

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Where did this prayer even come from? Why does it feel both comforting and problematic? And what does it mean to call Mary the “Mother of God” without making her, well, a goddess?

Let’s just say I’ve got some unpacking to do.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death

While the Hail Mary starts off innocently enough, it’s the second part of the prayer that really threw me for a loop. Full of Grace? Sure, I can handle that. But what comes next? That’s where things get tricky.

At first, I had trouble with the second part, in which Mary is “Holy Mary” and “Mother of God.” As a Protestant, I felt uncomfortable deifying Mary.

 Oh, I know that the Catholic church’s talking points include that this is “veneration,” not worship, and yes, I can tease out the differences. It’s just that for me, calling anyone “holy” is basically — or rather quite literally — associating them with the divine. 

Combine that with “mother of God,” and the diploma in World Religions on my wall leaps from its nail. 

There are plenty of mothers of God in humanity’s spiritual family, and placing Mary there makes her a goddess. I know a lot of contemporary people don’t see it that way, but you can bet the ancients did. Early Christianity’s cradle was in Alexandria, Egypt; it’s no coincidence that Mother Mary and Isis look like twins.

But I digress.

I got around the deification by just focusing on the first few lines of the Hail Mary in which Mary is simply human. For several centuries the prayer ended with “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Amen.” These words come from reliably from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, so even mainline Protestants such as I can wrap their arms around that. 

Or can they?

But, but, but.

Poor Mary remains a difficult personality to which to appeal. Not because she doesn’t seem nice or a good partner for a girls’ night out. 

It’s just that…yeah. Far from being a powerful being in her own right, who is ready to kick ass on our behalf, her greatest achievement resides in her victimhood — a child forced into pregnancy and motherhood in her early teens. Alateia.org describes Mary’s pregnancy this way — “A young teenager said ‘Yes’ to bearing the Messiah in her womb. She was just a little older than a child and was entrusted with the task of raising Jesus, the Son of God.”

Yikes! She was just a child — far below the age of self-agency. God doesn’t look good in this story. Yes, I hear those of you who are saying, “But that was normal for the culture and the time.” 

Sure, your point is well taken, but here’s my point — yuck. 

According to Valerie Fentress, a writer for Bible Study Tools, the Catholic tradition that Mary was a perpetual virgin is based in part on apocryphal books such as the Gospel of James, and the History of Joseph the Carpenter. In her article Do We Know How Old Joseph Was When He Married Mary? she says, “These documents state that Joseph was married and had six children before marrying Mary and was in his forties when he married Mary.”

So, Mary was probably young enough to be his daughter. That may have suited folks just fine when Old Testament times were rolling over into New Testament times. It doesn’t suit (most of us) now, I don’t have to like it. In fact, there’s a lot to pick apart about the theocratic, patriarchal, slave-holding society this story came out of…so let’s shelve the cultural yuck-factor for now.

You can see why I wrestled with asking favors of Mary. Poor kid — she needed an intervention herself. 

I felt like I should be praying for her, not to her.

Or, ahem, “venerating.”

But she’s my girl, and her vulnerability to being pushed around by older, “wiser” men as an adolescent makes her relatable. She can probably understand some of the manipulators and gas-lighters I’ve let slip past me, some of the stupid shit I’ve done and regret.

Pray for us now, oh, knocked-up pre-teen, and at the moment of our death. We know you can relate.

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