http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=grace
The sense of the word meaning 'favor' seems very appropriate for what was being conveyed to Mary.
Let's look at this another way. There are two places in scripture where the phrase "Full of grace" appear. Do you know where they are? It is not Luke 1:28 as it does not appear there, but for some reason you want to make it appear there. Why is that?
Why does how an English translation reads have any bearing on what is said in the original language?
There is only
ONE place in all of scripture that the word
KECHARITOMENE is used.
It is used as a DIRECT address . . meaning it is used in place of Mary's name or pro-noun.
So the Angel is saying, this is who you are . .KECHARITOMENE.
This is tantamount to a name change, but it is not a name change for it is who Mary has always been.
This type of addressing of someone is HIGHLY significant. It is VERY hard to read "too much" into this.
Also, KECHARITOMENE is in the AORIST, PREFECT, PASSIVE tense
"The 'perfect' action of the participle is considered to have been completed before the time of the speaker. How long before is not a consideration but the Greek verbal idea is that the action has already been completed. Time is still secondary but perfected action must imply the past in relationship to the speaker. The person using the word is confessing that the one referred to has already been [graced]."
" 'Highly favoured' (kecharitomene). Perfect passive participle of charitoo and means endowed with grace (charis), enriched with grace as in Ephesians. 1:6, . . . The Vulgate gratiae plena [full of grace] "is right, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast received'; wrong, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast to bestow' "(A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, p. 14)
"It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitomene as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament).
Here is some interesting exposition on this verse by the ECF's:
The Greek Fathers
Here are a number of ancient experts and what they say it means; each of them is a Greek-speaker from a culture basically identical to that of St. Luke; there are a couple repeats from the previous thread, but from them I give new material, too; the passages are expositions by the authors of the meaning of Luke 1:28, generally centered on chaire, Kecharitomene:
Gregory Thaumaturgus (205-270 AD):O purest one
O purest virgin
where the Holy Spirit is, there are all things readily ordered. Where divine grace is present
the soil that, all untilled, bears bounteous fruit
in the life of the flesh, was in possession of the incorruptible citizenship, and walked as such in all manner of virtues, and lived a life more excellent than man's common standard
thou hast put on the vesture of purity
has selected thee as the holy one and the wholly fair;
and through thy holy, and chaste, and pure, and undefiled womb
since of all the race of man thou art by birth the holy one, and the more honourable, and the purer, and the more pious than any other: and thou hast a mind whiter than the snow, and a body made purer than any gold
Akathist hymn (5th or 6th century AD):Hail, O you, through whom Joy will shine forth!
Hail, O you, through whom the curse will disappear!
Hail, O Restoration of the Fallen Adam!
Hail, O Redemption of the Tears of Eve!
Hail, O Peak above the reach of human thought!
Hail, O Depth even beyond the sight of angels!
Hail, O you who have become a Kingly Throne!
Hail, O you who carry Him Who Carries All!
Hail, O Star who manifest the Sun!
Hail, O Womb of the Divine Incarnation!
Hail, O you through whom creation is renewed!
Hail, O you through whom the Creator becomes a Babe!
Hail, O Bride and Maiden ever-pure!
Theodotus of Ancyra (early 5th century AD):Hail, our desirable gladness;
Hail, O rejoicing of the churches;
Hail, O name that breates out sweetness;
Hail, face that radiates divinity and grace;
Hail, most venerable memory;
Hail, O spiritual and saving fleece;
Hail, O Mother of unsetting splendor, filled with light;
Hail, unstained Mother of holiness;
Hail, most limpid font of the lifegiving wave;
Hail, new Mother, workshop of the birth.
Hail, ineffable mother of a mystery beyond understanding;
Hail, new book of a new Scripture, of which, as Isaiah tells, angels and men are faithful witnesses;
Hail, alabaster jar of sanctifying ointment;
Hail, best trader of the coin of virginity;
Hail, creature embracing your Creator;
Hail, little container containing the Uncontainable.
Romanos the Melodist (d. c. 560 AD): Hail, untouched Virgin! Hail, chosen spouse of God! Hail holy one! Hail, delightful and beautiful! Hail, joyful sight! Hail, unseeded earth! Hail, uncontaminate! Hail, Mother who knows not man! Hail, Virgin Bride!
John the Theologian (c. 400 AD):"[T]he Lord said to his Mother, Let your heart rejoice and be glad, for every favor and every gift has been given to you from my Father in heaven and from me and from the Holy Spirit. Every soul that calls upon your name shall not be ashamed, but shall find mercy and comfort and support and confidence, both in the world that now is and in that which is to come, in the presence of my Father in the heavens" (The Falling Asleep of Mary).
Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you! The original Greek was kecharitomene, the perfect passive participle of charis, grace. St. Jerome translated it into Latin as gratia plena, full of grace. In Greek the perfect stem denotes a completed action with a permanent result. Kecharitomene means completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace. The Protestant Revised Standard Version translates [SIZE=-2]Lk 1:28[/SIZE] as highly favored daughter. This is no mere difference of opinion but a conscious effort to distort St. Lukes original Greek text. Had Mary been no more than highly favored, she would have been indistinguishable from Sarah the wife of Abraham, Anna the mother of Samuel, or Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist, all of whom were long childless and highly favored because God acceded to their pleas to bear children. But neither Sarah nor Anna is described as kecharitomene in the Septuagint, a translation by 70 Jewish scholars of the Hebrew Scriptures for Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt. Nor does Luke use it to describe Elizabeth. Kecharitomene in this usage is reserved for Mary of Nazareth.
In Luke 1:28, the angel Gabriel greets Mary as "full of grace". Protestant translations often render this as "highly favored", but this is a weak, inaccurate translation. The Greek term here is
kecharitomene, a perfect present participle of the verb charitoo, which denotes "grace". A perfect participle indicates an action completed in the past with existing results, and a present participle denotes continuous or repeated action. So
kecharitomene means "you who were and continue to be full of and completed in grace". Now
grace is not mere unmerited favor, but God's gift of spiritual life and communion with Himself. Sin and grace are opposed (Romans 5:20-21), and grace saves us from sin (Eph 2:5, 8). So Mary's fullness of grace indicates a complete absence of sin. Thus Luke 1:28 provides a second hint at Mary's sinlessness.
St. Lawrence, in his own version of an argument against the notion
sola scriptura, shows that the unified tradition of both the Greek and Latin interpreters confirms the teaching of Mary's unique plenitude of grace:
I know that the Greek text at Luke 1:28 says kecharitomene and that this word means favored and pleasing or uniquely loved and dear. I also know, however, that the holy Church of God has always from the beginning read "full of grace" and that this universal reading has been supported and fully ratified by the reckoning of all theologians and by the approval of all the holy Doctors, even by the reckoning and approval of those among the Latins who were skilled at Greek. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and others acknowledged this reading; they did not alter it, but constantly preserved it. St. Jerome wrote: "Holy Mary is greeted as full of grace, because she conceived him in whom the full plenitude of the Divinity dwelled bodily" (PL 22, 379). St. Ambrose wrote: "It is well said that she is full of grace, who alone obtained the grace which no one else merited so that she was filled by the Author of grace" (PL 15, 1285). St. Augustine wrote: "Mary, full of grace, is said to have found favor with God in order that she might be the mother of her Lord, rather of the Lord of all." He wrote further: "When the angel said to her, hail full of grace, he showed that the anger of the first judgment was removed and that the full favor of benediction restored" (PL 39, 1991).
Why do I recount the opinions of the Latin Doctors when the Greek Doctors agree with us and also expound the phrase in the same way? The great Athanasius wrote: "It was brought about that you were called full of grace because you were one who abounded in all grace." And he also wrote: "Therefore she was called full of grace because through the implementation of the Holy Spirit she abounded in every grace." And again he wrote: "From the riches of the divine charisms she was called kecharitomene." He often repeated that Mary was full of a singular grace and, as he himself used to say, she was steeped by the Holy Spirit in all the essential virtues (Cf. PG 28, 339). Epiphanius noted the immense grace of Mary and called her a person adorned with many virtues, a spiritual ark of glory, a golden vessel in which was contained heavenly manna, a spiritual sea and ocean of graces (PG 43, 490). St. John Damascene also wrote: "You are the bedroom of the Holy Spirit, a sea of graces, totally beautiful and wholly near to God" (PG 96, 848).
The angel Gabriel seemed to wish nothing else at all to be understood but that Mary was uniquely beloved of God and dear to Him, full of grace in the eyes of the Lord, seeing how he chose and asked her to be his most beloved spouse. To join the Latin with the Greek reading, Mary is at once said to be favored and full of grace. She is truly the favored woman about whom Solomon speaks in Proverbs: "A gracious woman gets honor" (11:16). She was favored just like Esther about whom we read that she was a woman favored in the eyes of all but especially in the eyes of Ahasuerus, who loved her above all women.
We read of no other woman being full of grace, although we hear about not a few men being full of and filled with the Holy Spirit. Of Bezalel, the architect of the holy sanctuary, God says: "See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel
and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship" (Ex 35:30-31). Likewise it is said of Joshua that he was filled with the spirit of wisdom, because Moses laid his hands upon him as we read in Deuteronomy (34:9). Gabriel foretells of John the Baptist that "he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Lk 1:15). Of the Apostles we read: "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:4). These men, however, were not full of grace in the same way as Mary. God, the creator of all things, filled all the stars of the firmament with heavenly light, but illuminated the sun and the moon with the chief and greatest light. Christ is as the sun, which shines brilliantly with its own light and Mary is an image of the moon, which is adorned by the greater light, but nevertheless possesses this shared light in its own right. So we read that Christ is full of grace: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth"; and "From his fullness have we all received"; and "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (Jn 1:14-17). After Christ, however, Mary is declared to be full of grace insofar as she received grace from God, the giver of all things, from whom comes "every good endowment and every perfect gift" (Jm 1:17). Hence the angel included both grace and God in his greeting, the effect with its cause, saying: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you."
Peace
it is something I need to work on.
