‘We should remember’, says St Thomas Aquinas commenting on the Ave Maria, ‘that of old it was a very great thing for angels to appear to men, and also was it the right thing for men to show them reverence. Thus to the credit of Abraham it is written that he showed hospitality to angels and reverenced them. But that an angel had shown reverence to man was a thing unheard of until the time when he reverently greeted the Blessed Virgin saying: Ave, Hail’ Thus in the eyes of Catholic theologians the veneration of our Lady began at the Annunciation when she was accorded honour and respect by the messenger of God himself.