Hail, Mary, Our Hope

In the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a woman (cf. Gal 4:4). This is the fundamental point of God’s divine plan of salvation on behalf of the whole of humanity. God saves men in Christ, in His eternal Son, born of the Virgin Mary. She who is Mother, while always remaining Virgin, stands, therefore, at the heart of the divine mystery, which unites the fullness of time with her motherhood.

Mary, mother given by God: the foundation of our hope

Through the mystery of God’s birth in time, His Mother is set by Him as model and herald of salvation. From generation to generation, she, the chosen Woman, is the perennial memory that Christ, true Son of God and truly her Son, entered into time, so that all might receive, from His fullness, grace upon grace (cf. Jn 1:16). Indeed, the Son of the eternal Father and Son of Mary did not leave humanity at the mercy of its own weakness. He willed to be born of the Virgin, in order to be the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6).

By God’s will, the Virgin is a witness of human sufferings and joys, of their hopes and of their threats. She is the Woman of hope, because she always accompanies humanity on its journey through time. In her, history was renewed and human time became a sharer in what does not pass away. And because Mary’s Motherhood is virginal, to look to her is to hope confidently in the action of God, who never fails and never disappoints.

The Hail, Holy Queen (Salve Regina): Mary as spes nostra

The Hail, Holy Queen teaches us that the Mother of mercy is “our life, our sweetness and our hope”. Mary, who offered the human race to the Son of God, continues to offer Christ, the hope that the world seeks. Against appearances and easy, passing answers, the Mother teaches true hope, which points to eternity. Whoever lets himself be guided by the Mother of holy Hope, whoever makes her his spiritual Teacher, will be more attentive to the things above. From Mary one does not receive passing answers, subject to fashions and to fleeting feelings. Mary’s offering, in every age, is Christ, who is, who was and who is to come (cf. Rev 11:17). Mary’s offering, for us too, is Christ, who is the same, yesterday, today and for all eternity (cf. Heb 13:8).

Our hope, the sweet Mother will always be the way to the fullness of Life, which is Christ. For this reason He, who entered into our time by the work of the Holy Spirit, gave us His Mother as the luminous star of hope. And she does not cease to show Him to the world, as she did on the night of Bethlehem.

Fr. João Paulo Quelhas

The theology of Mary as “our hope” finds magisterial expression in the Encyclical Spe Salvi of Benedict XVI, where Mary is contemplated as the star of hope that illumines the Christian journey.

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To deepen Marian devotion and prayer to the Virgin Mary, consult the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus by Pope Paul VI.