The Hail Mary is a devotional prayer that is made up of two Scriptural references:  The first half from Luke 1:28 “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed are you among women,” which is the greeting of the Angel Gabriel when telling Mary she was to be the Mother of God.  The second half’s Scriptural reference is Luke 1:42 “Holy Mary Mother of God” when Mary’s cousin Elizabeth greeting Mary. Pope Urban IV is credited with adding on, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”  The Rosary’s origin is in the 13th century when She is said to have appeared to St. Dominic (founder of the Dominicans), given him a rosary, and asked that Christians pray the Hail Mary, Our Father and Glory Be prayers instead of the Psalms. The original Rosary of St. Dominic had 15 decades.

The Hail Mary and the Our Father are the two prayers virtually every Catholic has memorized since childhood.  They are the two most signature devotional prayers Catholics fall back on when there is a need for prayer, for the times when we can’t find the words to express to God what we are wanting to say.  It’s a go-to prayer and for some a daily ritual that is profoundly stabilizing in their lives.

Sometime in 1978 I was returning from a concert I presented in central Washington and I thought I would spend the long drive praying the Rosary.  Somewhere along the road the spoken prayer became a sung prayer and by the time I was home I put some guitar chords to the melody.  

PS. Over the years I have had several Catholic ministers ask for the sheet music to the Hail Mary and I’m always glad to share.  However, one nice lady wrote to tell me that she has added a word to my version of the Hail Mary.  The word was Jesus.  My version left that name out of the Hail Mary.  I was glad she took the liberty to make it her own.