The virgin’s name was Mary
8 DECEMBER (Lk 1,26-38)
The Virgin Mary is greeted by the Angel: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Never before in Holy Scripture a greeting like this was heard. Someone has been hailed: “The Lord is with you.” Never was any one said to be “full of grace”.
Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. While his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to save it from the Midianites, the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, O champion!” “My Lord,” Gideon said to him, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are his wondrous deeds of which our fathers told us when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ For now the Lord has abandoned us and has delivered us into the power of Midian.” The Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have and save Israel from the power of Midian. It is I who send you.” But he answered him, “Please, my lord, how can I save Israel? My family is the meanest in Manasseh, and I am the most insignificant in my father’s house.” “I shall be with you,” the Lord said to him, “and you will cut down Midian to the last man.” He answered him, “If I find favor with you, give me a sign that you are speaking with me. Do not depart from here, I pray you, until I come back to you and bring out my offering and set it before you.” He answered, “I will await your return.” So Gideon went off and prepared a kid and an ephah of flour in the form of unleavened cakes. Putting the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out to him under the terebinth and presented them. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and unleavened cakes and lay them on this rock; then pour out the broth.” When he had done so, the angel of the Lord stretched out the tip of the staff he held, and touched the meat and unleavened cakes. Thereupon a fire came up from the rock which consumed the meat and unleavened cakes, and the angel of the Lord disappeared from sight. Gideon, now aware that it had been the angel of the Lord, said, “Alas, Lord GOD, that I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” The Lord answered him, “Be calm, do not fear. You shall not die.” So Gideon built there an altar to the Lord and called it Yahweh-shalom. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites” (Judges 6,11-24).
What does to the Virgin Mary mean to be full of grace, even when of St. Stephen it is said that he is full of grace? Is it perhaps the same thing?
Now Stephen, filled with grace and power, was working great wonders and signs among the people. (At 6,8).
Stephen is filled with grace from the moment of baptism. The Virgin Mary is full of grace from the moment of her conception. Stephen began his existence with the original sin in the soul. The Virgin Mary, by a special privilege, in view of the merits of Christ, was not even touched by original sin. From the first moment of her existence She is the All Holy, the Immaculate, the Most Pure and the Most Perfect.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
The Virgin Mary is the only creature in the world redeemed by Christ Jesus by prevention and not by liberation from acquired infection. All we are freed from sin. She did not even know it, ever. She is full of grace at the beginning, during and at the end of her existence. She has grown in grace till reaching possible absolute perfection to a creature. Never might all created holiness equal the one of the Mother of God.
Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints help us grow in grace.