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Chapter 6Betbuechlein.1.6

Auslegung des Aue Maria

The Proper Place of Marian Devotion

True devotion to Mary must never replace trust in God, but rather serve as a means to praise God for his grace.

Here note this: that no one should ever place their trust and confidence in the Mother of God or her merits. For such confidence belongs to God alone, as the one high act of worship.1 Rather, through her and through the grace that has been given to her, one should praise and thank God. And one should not praise and love her in any other way than as the one who has received such gifts from God purely by grace, without merit, as she herself confesses in the Magnificat. Just as when I look at the heavens, the sun, and all creatures, I am moved to praise their Creator, weaving them into my prayer and praise, saying: Ah, God, you who have created such beautiful, fine creatures—give me..., and so on. In the same way, your prayer should also include the Mother of God, saying: Ah God, what a noble human being you have created here; blessed be she, and so on.✦ And you, who have honored her so highly, grant me also, and so on. In this way, the heart doesn't rest in her, but presses through her to Christ and to God himself.2

Understanding the Ave Maria

The Ave Maria is a prayer of praise and honor, not a petition, and should be understood as such.

That’s why the Ave Maria goes this way: it gives everything to God and says: Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus Christ. Amen.✦✦ So you see that what is contained here isn't a prayer, but pure praise and honor. Just as in the first words of the Our Father there is likewise no prayer, but praise and honor of God—that he is our Father and is in heaven. So, too, we cannot turn the Ave Maria into a prayer or an invocation. It isn't right for us to interpret those words any further than how they are written and how the Holy Spirit has established them.3

Meditation and Petition in the Ave Maria

The Ave Maria can be used for meditation on God's grace and as a basis for intercessory prayer.

Still, we can approach it in two ways. First, as a meditation, in which we recount the graces God has given her. Second, by adding this wish: that she be recognized and regarded as such by everyone.4 First, she is full of grace, so she is known to be free from all sin—and that is a high and great thing. For God's grace fills her with every good and frees her from every evil. Second, God is with her—meaning that everything she does or leaves undone is divine and happens within her through God; furthermore, he protects and keeps her from anything that might harm her. Third, she is blessed above all women—not only because she gave birth without labor and pain, and without injury, above Eve and all other women.✦✦ But also because she became fruitful and conceived without any sin, by the Holy Spirit, a bodily fruit that has been given to no other woman.✦ Fourth, that her fruit is blessed — namely, kept free from the curse that falls on all the children of Eve, so that they are conceived in sin and born liable to death and damnation. But this fruit of her body alone is blessed, and through that same fruit, we are all blessed. Second. So, we should add a prayer or petition here: that we pray for everyone who curses this Fruit and Mother. But who curses this Fruit? Everyone who persecutes and curses his Word, the Gospel, and the faith—just as the Jews and the Papists do now.

True vs. False Blessing

True blessing of Mary and her Fruit requires faith, whereas empty repetition without faith is blasphemy.

It follows, then, that right now no one curses this Mother and her Fruit as harshly as those who bless them with many rosaries and always have the Ave Maria on their lips.5 For they are the very ones who curse Christ's Word and faith most severely. So take note of this: this Mother and her Fruit are blessed in two ways—bodily and spiritually. Bodily, with the mouth and with the words of the Ave Maria—those are her worst blasphemers and cursers.6 Spiritually, with the heart: I praise and bless her Child, Christ, in all his words, works, and sufferings. No one does that except someone who truly believes as a Christian. For without such faith, no heart is good; instead, by nature it is full of cursing and blasphemy against God and all his saints. Therefore, anyone who doesn't believe should be advised to leave the Ave Maria and all prayer alone, for it is written of such people: Oratio eius fiat in peccatum.7 Let his prayer become sin.✦ Psalm. 109.

Read the original Latin

HIe ist zu mercken / daß je niemand sein vertrawen vnd zuuersicht stelle auff die Mutter Gottes oder jre verdienst / Denn solche zuuersicht gebührt allein Gott / als der einige hohe Gottesdienst. Sondern daß man durch sie vnd durch die Gnade / so jhr gegeben ist / Gott preise vnd dancke. Vnd sie nicht anders lobe vnd liebe / denn als die von Gott solche Güter / aus lauter Gnaden / ohn verdienst erlanget hat / wie sie selbs bekennet im Magnificat.

Gleich als wenn ich aus ansehen des Himels / der Sonnen vnd aller Creatur / mich bewege / den Schöpffer derselbigen zu loben / vnd sie in mein Gebet vnd Lob menge vnd spreche: Ach Gott der du also schöne feine Creatur geschaffen hast / gib mir / etc.

Also auch hie / sol das Gebet die Mutter Gottes einmengen / vnnd sagen: Ach Gott / welch ein Edel Mensch hastu hie geschaffen / Gebenedeyet sey sie / etc. Vnd der du sie hoch geehret hast / gib mir auch / etc. Daß je also das Hertz nicht auff jhr beruge / sondern durch sie dringe zu Christo vnd Gott selber.

Darumb laut auch das Aue Maria also / daß es alle ding GOtt gibt / vnnd spricht:

Gegrüsset seystu Maria voll Gnaden / der HErr ist mit dir / Gesegenet bistu vnter den Weibern / vnd gesegenet ist die Frucht deines Leibes Jesus Christus / Amen.

Da sihestu / daß hierinne kein Gebet / sondern eitel Lob vnnd Ehre begriffen ist.

Gleich wie in den ersten Worten des Vater vnsers auch kein Gebet ist / sondern Lob vnd Ehre Gottes / daß er vnser Vater vnd im Himel sey. Drumb können auch wir aus dem Aue Maria weder ein Gebet noch anruffen machen / Denn es vns nicht zimpt / die Wort weiter deuten / denn sie lauten / vnd der heilige Geist gesetzt hat.

Doch mügen wir sie handeln auff zweyerley weise. Zum ersten / als ein betrachtung / daß wir drinnen erzehlen / die Gnaden / die jhr Gott geben hat. Zum andern / daß wir ein Wundsch dazu thun / daß sie von jederman dafür erkant vnd gehalten werde.

Auffs erste / ist sie voller Gnaden / damit sie ohn alle Sünde erkant wird / das ist ein hoch groß ding / Denn Gottes Gnade machet sie voll alles guten / vnd ledig alles bösen.

Auffs ander / ist Gott mit jhr / das ist / daß alle jhr thun vnd lassen / ist Göttlich / vnnd geschicht in jhr von Gott / dazu beschützet vnd bewahret er sie für allem / das jhr schedlich seyn mag.

Auffs dritte / ist sie gesegenet für allen Weibern / nicht allein darumb / daß sie ohn wehe vnd schmertzen / vnd ohn versehrung geboren hat / vber Heua vnnd alle andere Weiber. Sondern daß sie auch fruchtbar ist worden / vnd empfangen hat / ohn alle Sünde / von dem heiligen Geiste eine Leibliche Frucht / das keinem Weibe geben ist.

Auffs vierde / daß jhre Frucht gesegenet ist / nemlich / für dem Fluch enthalten / der vber alle Kinder der Heue gehet / daß sie in Sünden empfangen / vnnd des Todes vnd Verdamnis schüldig geborn werden. Aber diese Frucht jhres Leibes allein gesegenet / vnd wir alle durch dieselbige gesegenet werden.

Zum Andern.

Ist nun hie ein Gebet oder Wundsch dazu zu setzen / daß man bitte für alle die diese Frucht vnd Mutter verfluchen. Wer verfluchet aber diese Frucht? Alle die sein Wort / das Euangelion vnd den Glauben verfolgen vnd verfluchen / als jetzt thun die Jüden vnd die Papisten.

Daraus denn folget / daß jtzt niemand diese Mutter vnnd jhre Frucht so fast verfluchet / als die mit vielen Rosenkrentzen sie segenen / vnnd das Aue Maria immer im Maul haben. Denn sie sinds am meisten / die Christus Wort vnd Glauben am höchsten verfluchen.

Darumb schawe darauff / es wird diese Mutter vnd jhre Frucht zweyerley weise gesegenet / Leiblich vnnd Geistlich. Leiblich mit dem Munde vnd mit den Worten des Aue Maria / das sind jhre ergeste Lesterer vnd Verflucher.

Geistlich / mit dem Hertzen / daß ich jhr Kind Christum in allen seinen Worten / Wercken vnd Leiden / lobe vnd segene. Daß thut niemand / denn der recht Christlich gleubet. Denn ohn solchen Glauben / ist kein Hertz gut / sondern es steckt natürlich vol fluchens vnd lesterens wider Gott vnnd alle seine Heiligen. Darumb / wer nicht gleubet / dem ist zu raten / er las das Aue Maria vnd alle Gebet anstehen / denn es ist von solchen geschrieben / Oratio eius fiat in peccatum. Sein Gebet werde zur Sünde. Psalm. 109.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Luke.1.28 — And coming to her, he said, 'Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.'
  2. ↩Luke.1.28 — And coming to her, he said, 'Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.'
  3. ↩Luke.1.42 — And she cried out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
  4. ↩Luke.1.28 — And coming to her, he said, 'Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.'
  5. ↩Gen.3.16 — To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children, and your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
  6. ↩Luke.1.35 — And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the one to be born will be called Son of God."
  7. ↩Ps.109.7 — When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his prayer become sin.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩"der einige hohe Gottesdienst": "einige" here means sole/only (not "some"); Gottesdienst is worship/divine service. Rendered as the sole supreme worship owed to God alone in trust.
  2. 2 ↩Luther's point is teleological: Mary may be woven into prayer as God's creature, but the heart must not settle on her as terminus; she is a way through to Christ and God.
  3. 3 ↩anruffen = invocation / calling upon (Mary); kept as 'invocation' to preserve the distinction from petitionary prayer (Gebet) in Luther's argument.
  4. 4 ↩dafür = 'as such / for that,' i.e. as one God has so graced, not an independent title invented by the wish.
  5. 5 ↩Early NHG 'so fast' here means 'so strongly/firmly,' not modern German 'almost.' 'Im Maul haben' is blunt and dismissive (mouth/muzzle), not the more neutral 'Mund.'
  6. 6 ↩Luther's point, continued from the previous section, is that those who bless Mary only outwardly—with the mouth and the Ave Maria formula—are in fact her worst blasphemers and cursers, because they curse Christ's word and faith. The parallel spiritual blessing follows in the next section.
  7. 7 ↩Latin citation retained as in the source; vernacular rendering follows in the next sentence.

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