St. Mechtilde and the Hail Mary Written in Gold

Attribution: from the life of St. Mechtilde.

One day St. Mechtilde was at prayer, trying to find some new way to show her love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, when she fell into ecstasy. Our Lady appeared to her with the words of the Hail Mary written in letters of gold across her breast.

"My daughter," she said, "I want you to know that no one can please me more than by saying the greeting that the most adorable Trinity sent to me." Then she explained what each part meant to her: how "Ave" recalled that God had preserved her from all sin, how her name spoke of the light and wisdom God had filled her with, how "full of grace" reminded her that she can pour out grace on all who ask through her, and how each further word renewed the joy of the Word made flesh within her.

Mechtilde understood then that the simple prayer she had prayed so often was the very greeting most pleasing to the Mother of God, and the one by which heaven itself rejoices with her.

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Source:

Simplified retellings of the miracle and conversion stories that St. Louis de Montfort gathered in The Secret of the Rosary, written in the early eighteenth century. These are paraphrased in plain modern prose, faithful to the substance of the traditional English translation but not word for word. Montfort himself called them "ancient but authentic stories about the holy Rosary," collected from earlier authors such as Blessed Alan de la Roche, and offered on human authority, not as articles of faith.