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Ave Maria or Ave Mary

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(Hail, Mary!), the angel Gabriel's salutation of the Virgin Mary when he brought her the tidings of the incarnation (Luke 1:28). It is now a prayer or form of devotion in the Romish Church, called the Angelic Salutation (q.v.), and used to invoke the aid of Mary. The chaplets and rosaries are divided into so many Ave-Marys and so many Pater-nosters. The papists ascribe a wonderful efficacy to the Ave Mary. The following is the prayer: "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 in the hour of death. Amen." The practice of using this prayer at all is not older than the eleventh century, and its use before sermon is to be traced to the fifteenth century, when Vincentius Ferrerius, a Spanish Dominican, began to use it before his sermons, from whose example it rained such authority as not only to be prefixed to sermons, but to be joined to the Lord's Prayer in the Roman breviary. — Bingham, Orig. Eccles. Luke 14, ch. 4; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirche -Lexikon, s.v. (See ROSARY).