I had never considered the interconnection between the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary before my conversation with Shea. The Lord’s Prayer was composed for disciples; the Hail Mary was composed by disciples. The Lord’s Prayer was handed from the top down, presented by Jesus himself, who says in the Gospel of Matthew, “This is how you are to pray.” The Hail Mary, meanwhile, grew from the bottom up, emerging out of popular piety with touchstones from both Gabriel and Elizabeth in the Gospel of Luke. “It’s a prayer that in many ways is a mirror reflection of the Lord’s Prayer, which makes sense because Mary is sort of a mirror reflection to Jesus,” Shea said.
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