[CynicalBear]

Wow! That was typical twisting of scripture. No where in scripture is Mary described as "full of grace". In fact, the older Greek manuscripts don't include the phrase "blessed art thou among women". The "full of grace" phrase was a corruption by Jerome in the Latin Vulgate. All versions which are translated from the original Greek do not have it.

[ADSUM]

You make a blanket statement without any documentation. How come there was no objection to the Blessed Mother until the Protestant Reformation 1500 years later? Maybe this will help: The Greek word that is being translated as “full of grace” here is κεχαριτωμένη (transliterated: kecharitōmene), the perfect passive participle of χαριτόω (transliterated: charitoō), which denotes grace. Some versions translate kecharitōmene as “hail, thou that art highly favored,” but that doesn’t really capture the full meaning of what the angel Gabriel is saying here. For one, to translate charitoō as “favor” instead of “grace” is really to give a bare minimum translation of the word. Ultimately, kecharitōmene is derived from the word χάρις (transliterated: charis): charis –> charitoō –> kecharitōmene. The KJV translates charis as “grace” over 83% of the time. The KJV NT Greek Lexicon defines charitoō as “to make graceful, to peruse with grace” as its primary meaning. When the favor is divine favor, “grace” is the better translation. Various well-respected and scholarly reference works confirm this understanding. For example: “Charitoō can mean to Grace as in Luke 1:28 and Eph. 1:6, provided we understand that this grace is endowed by God…” [The Pocket Word Study of the New Testament, Atlanta, Ga.: Bernard & Brothers Publishing, 1982, p. 348] “Charitoō…Highly favored as in Luke 1:28 meaning to bestow grace upon…it really does not mean to show favor, but to give grace to” [Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D, ed., Lexicon To The Old and New Testaments, Iowa Falls, Iowa: World Bible Publications Inc., 1988, p. 1739] “Charitoō: Grace. To Grace.. as to the virgin Mary in Luke 1:28,… as in Eph. 1:6 were believers are said to be “accepted in the beloved” i.e., objects of Grace” [The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament, Chattanooga, Tenn.: AMG International, Inc. 1992, p. 1471] “Luke 1:28 This is all one word in Greek kecharitōmene a perfect passive participle of the verb Charitoō (only here and Eph. 1:6) … Abbott-Smith defines Charitoō as follows: endow with charis i.e. 1. (a.) to make graceful; (b.) to endure with Grace (i.e. Divine favor)” [Ralph Earle, ed., Word Meaning in the New Testament, Peabody, Mass.: Henndrickson Publishing, 1986, p. 52] “… Highly favored as in Luke 1:28 meaning to bestow grace upon … it really does not mean to show favor, but to give grace to” [Lexical Aides To the New Testament, Chattanooga, Tenn.: AMG International, Inc., 1992, p. 966] “Charitoō … kecharitōmene, full of grace, Luke i. 28 (RV. in margin, endued with grace) ” [W.J. Hickie M.A, Greek- English Lexicon to the New Testament, London: Macmillan, 1945, p. 208] “Charitoō: to bestow grace upon, Lk 1:28 Ep 1:6″ [George V. Wigram & Jay Patrick Green, Sr., The New Englishman’s Greek Concordance and Lexicon, Peabody, Mass.: Henndrickson Pub., 1982, p. 915] “28. kecharitomene… to bestow grace” [Cleon L. Rogers, Jr., ed., A Linguistic Key To The New Testament, copyright 1970, printed by Zondervan Publishing House, edited by . Vol. 1, p. 140] “Charitoō … to endue with grace …: Lk 1:28, Eph 1:6″ [George Abbott-Smith D.D, D.C.L., A Manual Lexicon of the New Testament, London: T. & T. Clark, 1929, p. 480] “Charitoō: akin to A., to endow with charis, primarily signified to make graceful or gracious… Luke I:28 ‘Highly favoured’ (Marg., ‘endued with grace’)” [W. E. Vine, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, (unabridged edition), Iowa Falls: Riverside Book and Bible House, p. 424] You get the idea. Now that we know that charitoō is better understood in this instance as “grace” and not simply “favor,” we must now consider what the perfect passive participle would mean. Source: http://catholicstand.com/defense-immaculate-conception-part-3/ Something else that is interesting about this word kecharitōmene is that it is in the vocative case. NTGreek.org tells us (here) that the vocative is “the case of direct address. It is used when one person is speaking to another, calling out or saying their name, or generally addressing them.” In other words, Gabriel is literally calls Mary “full of grace” as if that were her name.