St Peter Canisius and the Hail Mary

“𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑀𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ”

On today’s feast of St Peter Canisius S. J., Catholics may wish to thank this Doctor of the Church for giving us the second half of the Hail Mary prayer.

This 16th-century saint, known as the second Apostle of Germany, followed in the giant footsteps of St Boniface, who evangelized Germany a thousand years earlier. He was also quite active at the Council of Trent and wrote much on the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The first half of the Hail Mary, of course, comes from Scripture. What many Catholics don’t know is that the second half of this Catholic prayer is due to the intervention of St Peter Canisius at the Council of Trent. St Peter began adding on to the scriptural part of the Hail Mary the second half of this familiar prayer, “Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.” It was Trent that officially accepted the prayer and included it in their famous Catechism of the Council of Trent in 1566.