When we examine Gabriel’s greeting to Mary in Luke 1:28, particularly the phrase often translated as “full of grace,” it’s crucial to dig into the original language and challenge the traditional interpretations that have been passed down. Robert Gagnon provides a sharp critique of this translation, pointing out that the common rendering, rooted in the Latin Vulgate, might not accurately reflect the meaning of the original Greek. He contrasts this with Raymond E. Brown’s insights, a renowned Catholic New Testament scholar, who also raises questions about the conventional understanding. Gagnon’s analysis, which you can find here, really gets to the heart of the issue, exposing the deeper linguistic and theological nuances of the term “kecharitomene.” This invites us to rethink the Marian doctrines that have traditionally been connected to this passage.

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“Full of grace”? The phrase is associated in Catholic circles with the angel Gabriel’s address to Mary at the Annunciation of her virgin birth of the Son of God or Messiah, which when I was a Catholic child I well knew through the “Hail Mary” prayer we were taught regularly to pray: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee….” The prayer ends: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen” (I still remember it by heart!)

However, “full of grace” is a misleading mistranslation of the Greek kekharitomene (κεχαριτωμένη), derived from the Latin Vulgate translation gratia plena. This word is the perfect passive participle, substantive (noun) use, of the verb kharitoo (χαριτόω). It means “to bestow favor, show grace”; in the passive, “to be favored, to be graced or a recipient of grace.” As a substantive participle in the passive it means, “favored one.” It is a denominative verb, formed from the noun kharis, “grace, favor.” The Catholic NAB translation renders “favored one”; and the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible similarly translates, in a bit of a paraphrase, “you who enjoy God’s favor.”

The verb is used only one other time in the NT, in Eph 1:6 which speaks of God’s “grace” or “favor” (kharis) “with which he favored (‘graced’) us” in Christ. One reason for its use in the address to Mary in Luke 1:28 is the play on words with the greeting formula khaire (χαῖρε), which is the imperative of the verb that means “rejoice,” but is the normal Greek word for “greetings, hello, welcome, glad to see you, good day,” archaic English “hail.”

Another reason for the choice of this particular word is that its meaning is expanded in Gabriel’s explanation in v. 30, “for you have found (heures, aorist of heurisko) favor (kharis) with God.” In the angel’s ensuing remarks (vv. 31-33, 35), the particular manifestation of being favored by God is that “the Holy Spirit will come upon” and “overshadow” Mary in her virgin state, and she will “receive together in womb” (i.e., conceive) a son whom she will name ‘Jesus,’ who will be called “Son of God,” and who will be the long-awaited descendant of David who will fulfill the promise made of Yahweh through Nathan the prophet to David in 2 Sam 7 regarding God’s promise to always have a Davidide on the throne, a throne that will be eternal.

The meaning is thus clear in the context: Mary is addressed as “favored one” because she has found “favor” or “grace” with God to be the woman who will, even in virginity, bear in her womb the long-expected Davidic Messiah or Son of God whose reign will have no end.

It does not mean, as some Catholic interpretation argues, that Mary is free from the stain of original sin (as the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception insists). That is a view that was allegedly “deduced” over many centuries from the fact of Mary’s virginal conception of the messianic Son of God.

The text of the annunciation in Luke says nothing about Mary being born sinless or even about Mary being made sinless at the annunciation. (Believers post-Pentecost have the Holy Spirit in them without being made sinless, though obviously Mary bore the Messiah in a distinctive way.) Nor does the text presuppose that Mary has residing in her all of God’s grace to dispense to those who devote themselves to her, much less imply that her possession of this grace prior to Gabriel’s visit is what led God to select her.

Raymond E. Brown was arguably the greatest Catholic NT scholar of the last two centuries. He wrote a 600-page book called The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (Doubleday, 1977). Here are his comments on “full of grace” that he rightly translated, “O favored one”:

“Full of grace” is too strong [a translation]. Luke knew that expression since it appears literally in Acts 6:8 [where it says of Stephen that he was “full of grace” (pleres kharitos)]; yet he (Luke) chose not to use it here (in 1:28). It is open to the interpretation that Mary already possesses the grace or perfection involved, whereas for Luke Mary’s special state is to be constituted by the divine favor involved in the conception of Jesus. Later theology stressed the fullness of grace and made it a cardinal principle of mariology, so that Mary was thought to possess every perfection possible for a creature. Indeed, it lies at the root of the axiom numquam satis (i.e., one cannot claim too much for Mary)…. This theological reasoning … goes beyond what Luke meant by kecharitomene…. It is wise to be conservative about how much Marian symbolism Luke intended in the relatively stereotyped salutation of 1:28.” (The Birth of the Messiah, pp. 326-27)