Hail, full of grace!
The word translated as hail is related to the word rejoice, thus reminding us of prophecy from Zephaniah and Zechariah:
Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more (see Zephaniah 3:14-15).
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee (see Zechariah 9:9).
No wonder Mary was taken aback by such a greeting. The angel also referred to the fact that she was full of grace, using a word that indicated that this had been the case already and was not brought about by his visit. She was being invited to recognize the way she had been blessed, and to in some sense personify the daughter of Zion, which had previously been a metaphor for Israel as a whole. Who was she, humble handmade of the Lord, to play such a role?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
Mary was the one chosen par excellence before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish, blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Unlike the rest of us who participate in this blessings only after our baptism Mary was enabled by the grace of her Son to partake of them from the moment of her conception. We can see that this was always the plan from the first reading from the book of Genesis:
"I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel."
The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.
We know that Eve would go on to become the mother of humanity, but not truly the mother of the living. She forfeited her spiritual life together with Adam and so became the mother of those who were spiritually dead. But Mary, who would become the mother of all of those who were made the brothers of Jesus by spiritual adoption, sons and daughters of the Father, was truly the mother of the living. Being graced from the moment of her conception enabled her to fulfill a unique role in salvation history and to be a blessing to others, to ourselves, and all those who would come to love her Son throughout history. Her blessing was unique, yet not given for herself but for the world. She was like Israel who was uniquely elected by God, but for the sake of the nations. This parallel shows us that there really was a sense in which she embodied the daughter of Zion.
But Mary said to the angel,
"How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?"
Since she had already been promised to virginity she knew that this birth couldn't come about in the normal way. She did not doubt, but she did question what was beyond her comprehension.
And the angel said to her in reply,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Mary would be overshadowed by the cloud of the shekinah glory of God and to become a new and living temple of God's presence. This would coincide with the Holy Spirit coming upon her in a unique way as the child was conceived in her womb. In the Spirit, the Most High, and the child, we see a manifestation of all three persons of the Trinity as together they brought about the incarnation of the Son. But who, precisely, was this son to be?
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
Mary, poor and insignificant in the eyes of the world, was nevertheless the lowly one lifted up by God to give birth to the messiah. It was he who would finally bring about a Kingdom without end. Previous kingdoms had been susceptible to conquest by hostile nations precisely because the people were not firm in their commitment to God. And so, in order to bring this Kingdom, this new Son of the Most High and of David would have to bring about new hearts in those who would be its subjects. And this is precisely what he did. But even here, at the beginning, we see a model of what those hearts are meant to be:
Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."
Then the angel departed from her.
The Kingdom has been solidly established. But we as individuals vary in how firmly we adhere to it. We don't all always express the complete availability and obedience of the Mother of God. But this blessing was given to her in order that it could be revealed and shared by her with her children. The full magnitude of the possibilities that are opened when we give ourselves like Mary gave herself were revealed here in order to give us hope and fill us with desire to imitate her. The more we do so the more we too will come to sing with the psalmist:
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
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