“Hail Marys”?

C. S. Lewis:

     But Hail Marys raise a doctrinal question: whether it is lawful to address devotions to any creature, however holy. My own view would be that a salute to any saint (or angel) cannot in itself be wrong any more than taking off one’s hat to a friend: but that there is always some danger lest such practices start one on the road to a state (sometimes found in R.C’s) where the B.V.M.[fn. 133: Blessed Virgin Mary.] is treated really as a deity and even becomes the centre of the religion. I therefore think that such salutes are better avoided. And if the Blessed Virgin is as good as the best mothers I have known, she does not want any of the attention which might have gone to her Son diverted to herself.

(C. S. Lewis, Letter, “To Mary Van Deusen (W),” Magdalen College, Oxford, 26/6/52; In: The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis: Volume III, ed. Walter Hooper, [San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007], p. 209.) Preview.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria