Perhaps the most famous Hail Mary in American History was said by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach in a 1975 NFC Divisional Playoff Game. With his team down by four and only 24 seconds left on the clock, Staubach launched a desperate pass from midfield to wide-receiver Drew Pearson near the end-zone. I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary, said Staubach to reporters after the game. Apparently his prayer was answered because the ball was caught, though Pearson thought he had dropped it. He scored a touchdown on the play and the Cowboys won the game in legendary fashion. Staubach’s miraculous pass would later become known as “The Hail Mary Pass”, a term that is now generally used by Americans to describe any last chance effort that is made without much likelihood of success.
The very first Hail Mary was said over two-thousand years ago by an angel named Gabriel and a middle-aged woman named Elizabeth to announce for the very first time, Jesus on earth, the mysterious moment of his incarnation, when the word of God first took the form of human flesh. It is an expression of praise and exaltation, in as much as it is a cry for God’s help. We seek his favor, when we seek the favor of his mother, our mother, the favored one of God (Lk 1:29).
The Hail Mary becomes a more personal, intimate prayer as we begin to see our relationship with the Lord through the relationship we have with his Mother. Behold, your mother, said Jesus to his beloved disciple on Calvary. Woman, behold your son (Jn 19:27, 26). Jesus said these words before his death to usher in the relationship we now have with him through his mother, on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10). And so in a certain way we can say that at the moment of Christ’s death, the intercessory prayer of the Blessed Virgin Mary was begun.
At the most basic level, the Hail Mary is an intercessory prayer, a pass we make to the Mother of God. We put the ball entirely in her hands by placing our prayer entirely upon her lips. No human being knows Jesus better than his own mother. She completes our pass perfectly, because she knows how to speak perfectly to her son. We go to Jesus through Mary because we acknowledge that we do not know her son as she. Like a desperate quarterback launching the ball without knowing how it will be caught, we entrust Mary with the work we are too ignorant to complete.
The forward pass of football is the intercessory prayer of the Christian life. We don’t wait until the end of the game to throw one and we don’t just throw the ball to Mary. As Catholics we pass often, utilizing the entire offense on every play, scoring big through our communion with the Saints. We have faith our prayer will be heard by our Lord because we believe those closest to him will intensify our request.
Every Hail Mary is a Gospel prayer, a contemplation of Sacred Scripture. For we repeat the Word of God himself when we say, Hail Mary! The Lord is with you (Lk 1:29). Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb (Lk 1:43). These words are arguably the most important in the Holy Bible, for they were spoken at or near the moment of Christ’s conception. And our contemplation of them helps us understand his incarnation in the context of the rest of the Bible, God’s entire plan, and in the context of our everyday lives.
Football teams competing on most levels today keep at least one form of the Hail Mary pass in their playbook. Typically it involves sending five receivers to the end-zone, the maximum allowed by football rules. These five are often grouped together at the line of scrimmage to maximize their scoring potential. Similarly, the most popular form the Hail Mary takes in our playbook as Catholics is the Holy Rosary. The Rosary arranges our Hail Mary’s into groups of ten, and these decades are organized into the five mysteries of glory, joy, sorrow, and light. We meditate upon each mystery in part and in whole, and in doing so we maximize the teaching potential of every Hail Mary. The mysteries provide us with a deeper look at the incarnation of the Lord, his greatest gift to man, and each of the ten Hail Mary’s leads us into the mystery as we encounter it in our lives.
Humans are creatures of habit, typically engaged in the same activities each day, according to our individual schedules. We like to wake at the same time each day. We drive to work on the same roads. We breathe in and then we breathe out, all day, and all night. We are born, we give birth, and we die. The repetitive nature of the Rosary, and the mysteries themselves, mark the rhythm of human life (John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae). The Rosary invites us to find the great depth that is hidden within the simple, ordinary routine of our lives. It is there, like the touchdown pass hidden in the monotonous repetition of a quarterback practicing routes with his receivers. We pray the Rosary regularly. And in doing so we complete the Hail Mary Pass thrown by our very lives as Christians, our calling to become Christ himself, a goal that is impossible for human beings, but all things are possible for God (Mt 19:26).
