The Symbolic Structure of the Hail Mary

Mr Eby believes that the Western equivalent of the East's "Jesus Prayer" is the Hail Mary. Here, he outlines his reasons for that belief. 

From One Peter Five

By William Eby

Introduction

The Eastern Christians have an ancient prayer, called the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Although it is brief and simple, it contains a richness and depth that is incomparable. Some even say that it is a condensed summary of the gospels. In the first half of the prayer, it touches on the two fundamental mysteries of the Faith, that of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The second half highlights man’s relationship with his Creator, how he has fallen through sin, and how man attains salvation through his merciful Redeemer. For good reason, therefore, the Jesus Prayer has played a significant role in Eastern spirituality, and has a long and venerable tradition.

Having meditated upon this prayer, I have often contemplated what the Western Church’s counterpart to the Jesus Prayer might be. The Hail Mary is the clearest answer, since it is likewise short and meant to be repeated as is the Jesus Prayer. Thinking of the Hail Mary in this light, I immediately began wondering what theological riches are contained within the Jesus Prayer of the Western Church.

Background

The Hail Mary is divided into two parts:

1. Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
2. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

In the first part, all the words except for the names of Mary and Jesus come from Luke’s gospel, written in the first century. The words in part one come from two separate but related events in Luke’s gospel: the Annunciation and the Visitation. However, the second part was added by the Church in the medieval ages to form the Hail Mary as we know it today. Given that the Hail Mary took centuries to be formed, it is worthwhile asking why these particular gospel verses were joined and why the petition was added at the end. After all, there must be thousands of prayers that have fallen in and out of use within the Latin church, yet the Hail Mary has remained popular for centuries. What makes it so special?

In order to answer this question, it is useful to attend to the minds of those who wrote the prayer in the first place. Authorship of this prayer chiefly belongs to the medievals, who would have selected and joined the gospel passages and later wrote the petition. The medieval worldview itself has a diverse and complicated past stemming from two ancient roots: 1) Christianity, which has roots in the Jewish tradition, plays the dominant role for medieval culture; 2) On the other hand, the writings of several pagans, such as Cicero and Plato, also play an important role in the medieval period. Both elements were syncretized to form a coherent whole. It is important to remember, however, that anything coming out of the Middle Ages has both Christian and pagan influences.[1] 

What is of utmost importance in understanding the medieval or ancient mind is their understanding of symbolism. This is a particularly difficult adjustment for moderns to make since we come from a perspective of materialism. When a modern person sees an object, such as a tree, or the sky, or a bird, he asks: “what is it made of? how does it work?” Modernity reduces objects to their physical causes. The medieval man, in contrast, interpreted objects symbolically. Objects were not reduced to their physical causes, but they were signs pointing toward a higher and more excellent reality. The visible and material world was arranged in such a way that reflected the order of the invisible and spiritual realm. A bird is not merely a bird, because it points to something beyond itself.[2]

Furthermore, because each object in the visible order represented something in the invisible order, the medievals developed a symbolic language. For example, bird → X, and earth → Y, and sky or heaven → Z. One must understand what each object represents before making sense of anything on a larger scale, just as understanding words comes before understanding sentences. In order to understand the Hail Mary, it is helpful to consider two important images–the heavens and earth–which are, in fact, at the very heart of this prayer as will shortly become obvious. The Language of Creation by Matthieu Pageau will serve as a guide here. He writes,

When considered from an ancient human perspective, the words ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ refer to two halves of the cosmos. This polarity completely encompasses reality…. In other words, everything in this universe was made from some combination of heavenly and earthly components.[3]

The sky, since it is not tactile and less visible, is representative of the invisible realities which give meaning and form to the visible universe. Earth, however, signifies raw matter that has not yet been formed by the heavenly principles. When these two components join, they make everything in the universe as we know it, forming a relationship of mutual support. “The union of heaven and earth,” says Pageau,

involves a dual interaction, in which the heavens “cover the earth” and the earth “supports the heavens.” On one end, spiritual reality informs corporeal reality with meaning and purpose. On the other end, matter expresses spirit by making it visible and tangible in the universe.[4]

So the heavens imbue the world with shape and meaning, while informed matter manifests the higher order that would otherwise be absent from the visible world.

With these things in mind, we cannot reduce the Hail Mary to a praise and petition. Instead, since it was composed by the medievals, we can expect to see that the Hail Mary has a symbolic meaning that is deeper than what lies on the surface. Meanwhile, the cosmological symbols of earth and sky have now provided the knowledge necessary to begin analyzing the symbolic structure of the Hail Mary.

Analysis of Part I

There is only one obvious symbol used in the prayer, and yet it unlocks the Hail Mary’s symbolic meaning: Gabriel says to Mary, “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” At first glance Mary is cast as a fruit-bearing plant, perhaps a tree or a vine. But this association does not seem to fit well, since Jesus is more aptly associated with a tree and with a grapevine than his mother. The wood of the cross is commonly compared to the tree of Knowledge from Eden. Moreover, Christ refers to Himself as a grapevine in the Last Supper discourse: “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5). If Christ himself is called a “fruit” at the Annunciation, is it not strange that He is later spoken of as something that bears fruit? Of course, it is certainly possible that this image of a fruit-bearing plant could apply both to Jesus and His mother but in different ways. Christ produces fruit in the spiritual order while Mary produces fruit in the natural order.[5] However, there is another possible way of interpreting “fruit” that harmonizes Christ’s role as a fruit-producing plant and Mary’s role as His mother.

Plants are not the only things that bear fruit within the Catholic tradition. The ground or the earth is also said to bear fruit to the plant-life that grows from the soil. For example, it appears in the Eucharistic Prayer of the Novus Ordo, speaking with reference to the unleavened bread: “fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.”

There are also many instances in the Bible where the earth is said to bear fruit. In fact “fruit of the earth” and “fruit of the womb” occur together many times. The phrase “fruit of the womb” or “fructus ventris” occurs eight times in the Vulgate. In five occurrences out of those eight, the phrase “fructus terrae” or “fruit of the land” appears in the same verse. Four out of those five verses are in the Book of Deuteronomy, where both phrases appear as if in a list. “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep” (KJV, Dt 28:4). It is a list of things which are said to produce fruit, and notably fruit of the earth is the only thing which is not a sort of animal reproduction. Yet its placement within the list seems to be suggesting that it is similar in type. The phrases “fruit of the womb” and “fruit of the earth” are closely connected with one another in the biblical tradition.

The symbolic relationship between the Mother of God and the earth is also supported by the Church Fathers. Ephraim the Syrian, for example, compares the Theotokos to the earth in his Hymns on the Nativity.[6] “The virgin earth,” writes Ephraim in Hymn 1, “she bare that Adam that was head over the earth! The Virgin bare today the Adam that was Head over the Heavens.” In other words, as the earth was to Adam, so Mary is to Christ. In Hymn 8, he continues, “Your Father is in Heaven, Your mother is on earth.” And finally in Hymn 10, Ephraim says, “I am the earth to You, and You are the husbandman. Sow Your voice in me, You that sowed Yourself in the womb of your Mother.” Sowing is an agricultural image, so once again the Blessed Virgin is implicitly compared with the soil.

Furthermore, within the pagan tradition, the earth was typically personified as a woman. For example, Gaia, which means soil in Greek, was Mother Earth in Greek mythology, and she wedded Uranus the lord of the skies. In the ancient imagination, the earth played the feminine role in procreation. The earth was raw matter, thus having no form or life without aid from the heavens. Earth receives form and life from heaven coming and depositing seed from above in the soil. Sky, as the origin of order through its gift of seed, thus plays the masculine role in the production of life.

The Early Christian, Jewish, and pagan traditions all seem to support the association between the earth and the feminine role in reproduction. Given this evidence, it is at least possible if not likely that Luke intended this interpretation when writing his Gospel. Moreover, interpreting the Hail Mary in this way, as we will see, reveals the symbolic design of the prayer–a design which is coherent and beautiful.

When Elizabeth greets her cousin with the words, “blessed is the fruit of thy womb,” it is at least possible that she is comparing Mary to the earth while Christ is the vine or “fruit” that springs from the soil. Let us grant that Elizabeth does intend this comparison. Does this help us make sense of the Hail Mary? Indeed it does. We must recall that earth has symbolic value in the minds of the ancients and medievals. The earth visibly manifests in the world what is invisible in heaven but by far more noble and more excellent. Perhaps Mary is visibly manifesting a higher principle in some capacity. We must also remember that Elizabeth’s words to her cousin are juxtaposed to those of the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation in the Hail Mary. The Annunciation, of course, is the moment where the Creator of the universe who dwells in the heavens was conceived by the virgin Mary and became incarnate in human form, tangibly manifesting himself to his visible creation for the first time. Mary is the matter which “gives expression to the spirit by making [it] visible and tangible to the universe.”[7] Now of course we see why these two verses from separate pericopes in the gospel were brought together in the Hail Mary. They are in fact intimately related, since the Annunciation shows Mary giving her body, giving her matter so that God can take on flesh, while Elizabeth’s words at the Visitation portray Mary as the earth which receives form and gives expression to the Son of God. Elizabeth is providing symbolic commentary on what happened at the Annunciation.

Seeds fall to the soil from above. Perhaps a farmer is sowing the seed, or perhaps the seeds fall to the earth, cast from a tree by the wind, or perhaps a bird comes and drops the seed to the ground. The latter example fits quite well with the Annunciation, since Gabriel delivers the news to Mary in the likeness of a bird. Within the iconographic tradition, St. Gabriel, like most angels, is often portrayed with wings. Fra Angelico’s fresco of Annunciation (Madrid) takes it one step further. It features a bird resting in the rafters between Mary and the archangel. The bird faces Our Lady, and its tilted back is directly in line with Gabriel’s bowed posture. The Angelic Friar seems to be visually linking the two together.

We thus have a coherent and pleasing collection of images arranged for us in the Hail Mary. God the Father, whose throne is in the heavens, is the heavenly pattern upon which creation is based. Our Lady is the earth or soil that is destined to receive that pattern in seed form from above and to manifest on earth what is inaccessible to the senses. Gabriel, who delivers the message from heaven, prompting the receptive “fiat” of the Blessed Virgin, is presented as a bird that brings the seed to earth and plants it in fertile soil.

Analysis of Part II

In part two of the Hail Mary, the Theotokos’ cosmic role in salvation is inverted because she is elevated into a heavenly space. Let us remind ourselves of the words in question: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” It is important to remember that these words do not come from the gospels. The words from part one are taken from the gospels, and they examine a moment in which Mary plays a temporal and concrete role in salvation. However, the words from part two consider Mary as she is now in heaven–that is, after her assumption. If part one directs our attention to Mary’s earthly role in salvation, then part two directs our attention to her heavenly role. Consider that she is called the Mother of God. She is not called the mother of Jesus, or the biological mother of a man who is hypostatically united to the second person of the Holy Trinity. Instead the title “Mother of God” locates her specifically within the hierarchy of heaven. In other words, she no longer merely operates as a temporal cause in salvation–the woman who made God a part of the race of Adam. Rather, she takes on a heavenly role.

She accomplishes this in two ways: first, she becomes an intercessor. The Hail Mary asks Our Lady to pray for us, and as the Mother of God, she is in a good position to render us aid. Second, she becomes part of the heavenly pattern upon which creation, specifically the Church, is based. Recall how in the medieval cosmic model, the heavens gave shape and purpose to the earthly realm and how the visible realm imitates the invisible realm. Mary, who symbolically represented the earth, now transcends that position by her assumption into heaven, becoming integrated into the heavenly framework upon which the visible world is based. She becomes a model.

In order to understand her unique role in salvation, it is helpful to compare and contrast her with Christ. Christ, of course, is the model for all Christians. Even the word “Christian” means “little Christ”. He is the perfection towards which we all aim. So what does it mean when we say that Mary is also a model? To be a model may be understood in two different ways. Let us take a statue of Socrates as an example. The statue itself is not Socrates but resembles Socrates. Socrates himself is the model form or figure on which the statue is based. This is the first way of being a model. However, there is also the ideal material out of which the likeness is fashioned. It is the matter which is most receptive to the figure of Socrates. Perhaps marble is a better material out of which to make human figures than wood or plastic because it is more beautiful and more sturdy. Marble, in this case, is the ideal material out of which to make a statue of Socrates.

Similarly, Christ is the model figure, the one whose likeness is imitated. Mary, in contrast, models receptivity to the figure of Christ. She is, after all, the creature best disposed to receive and manifest the likeness of Christ. Thus the Blessed Virgin ironically retains her typography as soil or matter, yet she is also elevated to a new status in heaven, where she becomes an example of how to manifest heavenly things visibly. And she does this, on one hand, because it was her flesh out of which God became man. On the other hand she is also the most receptive to the grace of Christ having been immaculately conceived and living a perfectly pure life without sin.

Charles Cardinal Journet, a masterful Swiss theologian from the twentieth century, further aids our understanding of Mary’s heavenly influence in the work of salvation. In his Theology of the Church,Cardinal Journet examines Mary as an archetype of the Church, saying that she is the heavenly model upon which the Church is based: “In a more profound manner, however, one would say that the Virgin is in the Church; that she is, in the interior of the Church, the place toward which the Church continually tends.”[8] The Church aims for and desires to be more like Mary. In another passage, Journet hits upon the same idea but this time highlighting Mary’s mediation of graces:

The entire Church is Marian. When we say that Mary is the supreme realization of the Church, we mean that Mary is, in the Church, more a Mother than the Church, more a Bride than the Church, more a Virgin than the Church. We mean that she is Mother, Bride, Virgin, prior to the Church and for the Church; that it is in her, above all, and by her that the Church is Mother, Bride, and Virgin. It is by a mysterious excellence that is diffused from Mary that the Church can truly be, in her turn, Mother, Bride, and Virgin. In the order of the grandeurs of sanctity, which are the supreme grandeurs, Mary is, around Christ, the first wave, as it were, of the Church, the genetrix of all others, until the end of time.[9]

According to Cardinal Journet, Mary is the ideal towards which the Church strives; however, she is not an ideal in the same way that a professional athlete is an ideal. A professional athlete may indeed represent the goal toward which many young children strive, but does not necessarily aid the aspiring athlete to attain his goal. Mary, in contrast, exceeds the professional athlete by not only representing a goal, but also by actively making the Church more like herself: that is, more receptive to Christ and His grace.

Conclusion

Just as with the Jesus Prayer, the Hail Mary is likewise more symbolically rich and deeper than it initially appears. Elizabeth’s address to her cousin subtly links Mary not with a tree but with the ground. She is the soil which receives order from heaven and manifests it visibly in the form of her son, the Incarnate Word of God. The Theotokos is, for this reason, an example to us of being receptive to the grace of God. The Blessed Virgin is moreover elevated in her salvific role when she is assumed into heaven, becoming more than an example to emulate. She is a “genetrix” or mother who nurtures her children by disposing them to the grace of Christ.

In the age of progress, technology, and modernity, it is difficult for some to look beyond what is visible and overcome attachment to the senses. For others who are more spiritually minded, it is similarly difficult to go on living in a world attached to the senses without despair growing within. Whatever the case may be, the Holy Rosary is always a true consolation, so let us turn to Our Lady who, like a good mother, never fails to render her beloved children care and affection, nurturing us in whatever is needed for proper spiritual growth and maturity.

Biblical References

Verses containing “fructus ventris” and “fructus terrae”: 5

Deuteronomy 7:13
Dt 28:4
Dt 28:11
Dt 28:18
Psalm 126:3 (kinda)

“Fructus ventris” only: 3

Psalm 131:11
Micah 6:7
2 Esdra 10:12

“Fructus terrae” only: 10

Gen 4:3
Lev. 23:39
Numbers 13:21
Number 13:27
Dt 28:33
Isaiah 4:2
Psalm 104:35
1 Macc 11:34
Malachi 3:11
Sirach 45:25
James 5:7

---

[1] This is well documented by C. S. Lewis in his seminal book the Discarded Image (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

[2] For a more in depth analysis, see Rene Guenon, Symbols of Sacred Science, trans. by Henry D. Fohr, ed. by Samuel D. Fohr (Hillsdale NY: Sophia Perennis, 2001), 1-6.

[3] Matthieu Pageau, The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis (2018), 17.

[4] Ibid, 18-19.

[5] The iconographic tradition in fact portrays both Mary and Jesus as trees.

[6] Ephraim the Syrian, “Hymns on the Nativity” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3703.htm. Accessed July 22, 2025.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Charles Cardinal Journet, Theology of the Church, trans. by Victor Szczurek, O. Praem. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 113.

[9] Ibid, 120.