If the Lord’s Prayer invokes the Magician, the Hail Mary invokes the High Priestess. The Empress. The Mystic Mother. The Queen of Cups. The Healer. The receiver. The pool of ancestral and spiritual knowledge. The Mother to Any and to All.
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.
Amen.
Hail Mary,
Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women,
Mary, you are the Patroness of all women and femmes, of the queer, of the Trans*, of the healers, diviners, channelers, readers, of people with wombs, people who menstruate,
people who birth children,
people who care for children,
people who care for other people,
people who care for other living beings and living things,
a symbol of the Goddess in all their many incarnations,
in all their many phases and faces and forms.
The word woman came from the British desire (so imperialist desire) to designate who is not MAN or MALE in order to assert dominance over who was not considered MALE or MAN
Which means that Mary isn't just blessed amongst cis-women. Mary is blessed to all of those who are oppressed by the hetero-patriarchy.
Sanyu Estelle has a great IG post about the etymology of the word woman (and many inspiring posts about words, she is The Word Witch, after-all).
and Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
In giving our praise, our prayers the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, we praise all of the mothers, the caregivers, the femmes, the birthing people, womb-having people, birth workers, all people who do historically and presently "femme" labor, all of those who are oppressed by the cis-hetero-patriarchy.
We honor the matriarchy. We honor the fruit of all wombs.
Jesus was the fruit of Mary’s womb. I believe Jesus is symbolic here, of all those who desire to exist in his image. Which is an image of community care, empathy, and even revolution.
I think that it's also important to point out that Mary conceived a child BY HERSELF. That is some major deity shit!!!! Birthing a whole being just of thyself.
That's the shit that Zeus and Hera and Aphrodite do. And yet the Church instead emphasizes chastity as the most important thing, rather than the fucking miracle that it is to birth an entire human from thin freakin’ air!! !!
Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.
Who’s intercession on our behalf could be more powerful than the womb which Creation was birthed from?
My abuelo has told me more than once that Maria Cardidad’s (Our Lady of Charity, the Patroness of Cuba) lips go directly to God’s ears.
We ask that the unconditionally loving Supreme Mother assist us in carrying out our healings, our callings, our petitions, our desires, our relationships.
We ask for Their assistance to follow us throughout this lifetime, with the consistency, the stability of the mother figure we each need.
John 19:26-27 KJV says:
26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
In this moment, Christ gives his mother to the world. She becomes the mother to us all. She is mother the humans, the sinners, the forsaken, the ostracized - all those who were comrades of Christ.
Through the repetition of the recitation of the Hail Mary, we grow in our connection to her. We invite in her intercession, blessings, and unconditional love.
Reflections & Questions
Working with the Blessed Mother is a beautiful way to nurture the inner child.
She helps us by offering her unconditional love, support, and care.
She teaches us how to mother ourselves, how to feed ourselves, how to care for our basic needs.
Idk about you, but I felt fucking clueless when I first moved out at 19. And I certainly was. Had I been in a place to receive the blessed mother at that time, my suffering would have been a lot less dramatic.
I'm not mad that I wasn't able to receive then, though, because I receive from her in such abundance now.
In what ways do you desire to be mothered? There's no shame here, my loves! Maybe it's your emotional needs, your physical needs, your interconnection needs… whatever it is - take it to Mother Mary at your altar.
When was the last time you visited with your inner child? Consider paying them a visit in your meditations, daydreams, sleep dreams. Ask them how old they are, what they need, what they like, what they dream of.
Your inner child holds keys that connect you to the parts of yourself who are in need of mothering.
Invite them to be a part of the creative and playful parts of your life. Find a way to honor your inner child on your altar, or make a special altar just for them.