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You are quite right, metmom, when you say that the word "grace" in English doesn't tell us quite as much as the different forms of the word in Greek, which has a far more sophisticated grammar and can use its terms with distinctly different senses.

Thank you or your attention to this fact.

(If I am repeating something I said before, please forgive me. I don't always read everything on the thread, and I assume that must be true for others as well. I'd never get outside into the beautiful May air if I did that!)

(Stick your head out the door and look at those Irises!)

This is how I understand it. Although the same or similar words, "full" or "filled" with grace, are used for three different people in the NT (Jesus, Mary, and the deacon Stephen), it does not mean exactly the same for all three. If it did, we'd be saying that the blessedness of Jesus, Mary, and Stephen are indistinguishable, identical -- which cannot be, as I'm sure you'll agree.

How can they be distinguished, then?

The Greek grammar shows how.

Kecharitomene used in Luke to refer to Marym is a Greek perfect, passive, participle, which could literally be translated "having been graced," since the root of the word is "charis", which means grace.

In contrast, Ephesians 1:6, where Paul refers to Jesus Christ, uses the aorist, active, indicative echaritosen, meaning "he graced."

See the difference? Mary, passive voice, she received grace; Jesus, active voice, "He graced." This is due to the fact that Jesus is a Divine person; on a far lower scale, Mary is a human person, a creature and handmaid.

In Luke 1:28 "Kecharitomene" is nominative or titular, since it follows the greeting "Chaire" ---"Hail [name or title] --- thus the name would ordinarily be capitalized in English translations, just as you would capitalize "Kate Middleton" or "Duchess of Windsor."

"Kecharitomene" is who or what Mary IS.

The unique feature of Kecharitomene is that it is in the Greek perfect tense, denoting that the state of grace began in past time, by a completed action (hence "fully" accomplished), whose results continue in the present. A suitable translation to denote all these features might be "Fully-Graced One." The Greek passive voice denotes that Mary received the title from an outside source, in this case, Almighty God.

The New Testament uses the Greek "pleres charitos" ("full of grace") to describe Jesus (John 1:14) and Stephen (Acts 6:8), but these usages are not as specific to time, agent and continuity as Kecharitomene. Again, a feature of Greek grammar.