What Gabriel calls Mary is something like "The already-having-been-graced one." This passage isn't explicit when that happened--but it's clear it happened before the Angel spoke these words. Do you think it is purely an accident that the Greek Church calls Mary the "Panagia", the "All Holy"? You think they can't understand their own language? Come on... lets be serious ... And the angel came in unto her and said Hail thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women to make graceful, endow with grace Original Word: χαριτόω Part of Speech: Verb Transliteration: charitoó Phonetic Spelling: (khar-ee-to'-o) Short Definition: I favor, bestow freely on Definition: I favor, bestow freely on. Cognate: 5487 xaritóŠ(from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) – properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóÅ) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor). to make graceful, endow with grace Original Word: χαριτόω Part of Speech: Verb Transliteration: charitoó Phonetic Spelling: (khar-ee-to'-o) Short Definition: I favor, bestow freely on Definition: I favor, bestow freely on. Cognate: 5487 xaritóŠ(from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) – properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóÅ) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor). Mary was chosen before the foundation of the world to be the human mother of Christ.. so indeed the blessing to her was "past tense" . I wonder why there is NO focus on just what is meant by the declaration "before the foundation of the world"? Wonder what was going on that would cause some to be predestined to perform specific duties all these many years later... Now IF this selecting happened before the foundation of the world, would not that indicated the soul/spirit was existing to have the foreknowledge as to who had demonstrated their love and faithfulness?