More recently still, I had a birthday and received greetings cards from friends and family alike, celebrating that I’d survived another circuit around the sun and that I was another year older – and, indeed, older than most of my friends. Birthdays are great but sometimes, every “happy birthday” can be a reminder of both how far we’ve come and hopefully the time we have ahead of us. The beginning of the Hail Mary prayer is based on the greeting of Gabriel at the annunciation – an event in which she was terrified to begin with, asked questions next and then acted in faith, saying, “so be it,” and beginning her journey as the future-mother of Jesus. I wonder if, each time she hears us saying, “The Lord is with you!” Mary thinks back to that first greeting and everything that has happened since – I’m sure if she does, she takes it with more grace than I do the ruder birthday cards.
The gospel of Matthew tells us that Joseph “took Mary as his wife” after she was already pregnant and that they didn’t consummate the marriage until after Jesus had been born – the “married but not as fully-married as they were going to be” acting as a foreshadowing of the “here but not yet fully here” found throughout the Gospels. Indeed, during Advent, we look forward not just to celebrating the birth of Jesus but also his “return in glory” when, as the biblical imagery has it, the church shall be the bride, united completely at last with the risen, glorious and triumphant Christ – a Jesus who, nevertheless, is with us in our day-to-day confrontations with our own mortality.
This article originally appeared in Newcastle Diocese’s monthly newspaper the Link
Footnotes
The Rosary
The Rosary is a way of praying that uses a looped set of beads, separated into five sets of ten, with a tail end of three (plus another two dividers) ending with a crucifix – each little bead representing a short prayer and the dividers a longer one. Traditionally a Marian devotion, the short prayer would usually be the Hail Mary but, for the less-Catholicly-minded, the Jesus Prayer can be used – either as-is or substituting the names of those you wish to remember for “me, a sinner” at the end of each repetition.
Memento Mori Rosary Devotions
Fr Sam McNally-Cross, who made the rosary for me, has put together a booklet containing the readings and prayers for use with it and has published it here.
If you would like to order your own Memento Mori Rosary, please send him a message on Twitter
Hail Mary
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
The Jesus Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.