Angelus Domini

ANGELUS DOMINI. - This phrase is customarily used to designate the pious devotion by which, at the sound of the bell in the morning, at noon and at sunset, the faithful are invited to recite three Hail Marys, interspersed with three Gospel verses in commemoration of the Incarnation of Jesus and in praise of the Virgin Mother. It was from the first of those verses: A. D. etc., that this pious practice took its name.

Just as the present-day formula of the Hail Mary was formed and spread throughout the Middle Ages, until the form now universal in the Church was reached, so too must be said of the devotion of the A. D. Indeed, from the 13th century onward the invitation to prayer with the Pater and the Ave at the sound of the bell at the hour of Compline and curfew was common. St. Bonaventure exhorted his friars to instill this pious practice in the faithful, and John XXII granted a special indulgence for Rome in this regard in 1327. From the beginning of the 14th century the use of a similar prayer when the bell was rung in the morning is attested for many places: a use that entered into custom in that century and the following one. The ringing of the bell at noon for prayer was limited in some dioceses to Friday only; it was extended to all days when Callistus III in 1456 invited prayer for victory against the Turks. With these customs, from the 16th century onward, the practice still in force today was formed, and popes Benedict XIV and Leo XIII endowed it with special indulgences.

Pio Paschini