Hail Mary

"These pages do not pretend to furnish theologians and doctors with a new Mariology. My aim is much more modest; I am trying to reach many small souls, for whom a few rays of Holy Mary's beauty will suffice; that they may endlessly admire and better pronounce her name-after the Name of Jesus, the most beautiful of names."

Dom Eugene Vandeur's Hail Mary is not another scholarly exegesis on each part of that ancient prayer; it is a poetic, passionate, expressive, rhythmic hymn of praise. In the chapters of this little book, Dom Vandeur lovingly meditates on all the words and phrases of the Hail Mary, aiming to inspire Marian devotion in "small souls" and deepen in his readers appreciation for the prayer. Like the practice of prayerfully repeating the Hail Mary, this book is best when savored and returned to again and again.

Victor-Joseph Vandeur was born in Namur, Belgium, on 21 May 1875. Academically successful from a young age, he entered the Benedictine monastery of Maredsous, where he pronounced his Solemn vows in 1897. He was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on 15 August 1899.