In honor of our Blessed Mother’s two beautiful Advent feastdays – the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe – we want to share with you this Ave Maria.
Our founding Mothers brought this “Ave Maria” with them from the Dominican monastery in Catonsville, Maryland. We sing it solemnly every day after Mass for forty days before Christmas, concluding after Midnight Mass of Christmas itself. It sets a tone that blends in with the dark evenings, purple vestments, and lighted candles of Advent, as we unite ourselves with the expectation, hope, and petition of the Patriarchs and Prophets as they longed for the coming of the Messiah, dawning at last in the words of the first “Ave” spoken by the angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary.