The Magnificat

The Magnificat is a beautiful prayer and we can learn so much from it. However, I’ll just keep this brief because I figure if I really do go in depth, it might take quite a while and I don’t have the patience so I’ll just try to keep this simple yet meaningful.

“My Soul glorifies the Lord,
My Spirit rejoices in God my Saviour”

Thus begins Mary’s lovely song of praise that is witnessed by her kinswoman Elizabeth with both the unborn Jesus and the unborn John the Baptist in these women’s wombs. Notice, Elizabeth praises Mary and Mary in her immense humility turns the praises to God. That I guess is what happens when we pray the Hail Mary and echo some of Elizabeth’s words, she immediately glorifies the Lord.

Why does her soul and spirit glorify the Lord?

“For He has looked on His servant in Her lowliness,
Henceforth all ages will call me blessed.”

God has looked at His lowly handmaid, a young virgin girl of only 14 and has chosen her to be the mother of His Son. Mary knows that it is the Lord that makes her worthy of our praise and admiration and actually prophesizes that all generations will call her “blessed”. Thus, it could be said that those who do not praise Mary and give her due respect are actually not following the Word of God.

Mary actually here shows us that God in his immense love and wisdom can and will use anyone of us no matter how unworthy we feel we might be. It recalls the story of St Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe. St Juan Diego was a simple man with no education or anything and Our Lady appeared to him and commissioned him to have a church built in her honour in Mexico. He said that he was not the right person for the job as he did not know how to talk to those in power but Our Lady gave him the strength and courage through his humility and his simple humble act together with the ultimate humility of Our Lady, together helped convert almost the entire population of Mexico in less than a single generation.

“The Almighty works marvels for me,
Holy is His name,
His mercy is from Age to Age,
On those who fear Him,”

Our Lady then talks about the amazing things that God has done for her and she actually tells us why or maybe how it is that she had won God’s favour. She says that He shows His mercy on all those who “fear” Him. What does this fear of God mean?

Most of us would rightly see fear as a bad thing and it is if it keeps us from being all that we could be. However, this fear that is being spoken of here and in many other places in the Bible is actually a fear of being apart from the presence of God. I think that could be more accurate than when people think that it is a fear of God’s wrath. Yes, that is important but for the loss of God is an even scarier thing. We should all have this fear of the loss of God within us and thus hope never to do anything that might cause that to happen. So the fear of God, this Holy Fear, would actually help keep us from sin. And when we have this Holy Fear, God’s mercy will be upon us and He will work marvels for us.

“He puts forth His arm in strength,
And scatters the proud-hearted,
He casts the mighty from their thrones,
And raises the lowly,
He fills the starving with good things,
Sends the rich away empty,”

This is quite simple and complex. I remember somebody, probably Bro. Mike, calling it an ecclesiastical revolution of something. That’s just a fancy way of saying that God will change everything and that what we expect to happen might not always happen. God changes everything and if you’re leading a comfortable life at the expense of others then we need to know that God might change that at any time. Same for the opposite.

“He protects Israel is servant,
Remembering his mercy,
The mercy promised to our fathers,
To Abraham and his sons forever.

I read something recently about how if Abraham is the father of faith, then Mary, is the mother of faith and the similarities between the two are astounding. Both we told about miracle births that involved them, Abraham about how Sarah, his wife who was super-old was going to conceive and Mary about how she would experience an immaculate conception. Also, how both their journeys of faith ended on a mountain. Abraham leads Isaac up to a mountain to sacrifice him for God and God stops it before anything and a ram is sacrificed instead. Mary follows Jesus up to Golgotha and witnesses how God has His own Son sacrificed for all mankind. So God remembers the mercy of Abraham by sacrificing His own dear Son not just for Abraham but for all of us, forever.

As I’m still trying out this blogging thing, I’m not sure about how to end and so I’ll just stop here and say something brief and simple.

Thank you God for your gift of Mary and Thank you for everything you have done for all of us. Thank you for your mercy and all your marvels.

The Annunciation

The Youth In the Spirit Seminar has just come to a close and I was just looking at some stuff in the Bible and realising that what we did at the camp actually can be understood by looking at the mystery of the Annunciation.

Reflecting on this mystery is important for me because I remember telling a lot of people to be like Mary and to say “Yes” so that Jesus can come alive within them. It occurs to me now that in doing something like that, we, the ministers, are actually playing the role of the Archangel Gabriel. We are bringing the news that God wants to live inside all our participants.

It is interesting that the words said by the angel are similar to the words we sometimes use while undertaking the work of ministering. We tend to echo the angel’s words, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Now, as for the next bit of that line (Luke 1:35), the angel says, “therefore, the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” Do we say this? Does this apply?

(OK, I’m no expert so all I can give is my opinion. Hopefully it helps but if it is in anyway wrong, please do feel free to correct me. I really don’t want to tie a millstone around my neck for leading sheep astray.)

When we pray for the Holy Spirit to fall upon somebody, we should pray for a child to be born within that person. No. I do not mean literally. I mean that the Holy Spirit, when He first comes into contact with a person, would create a new person, a new Child of God. I guess that’s why I feel that the theme for this year, “All Things New” was a truly inspired theme. Anyway, we should thus pray for an awakening, within the person we pray over, of a new Child of God who will be holy, so holy that he/she will be called a Child of God. I guess that is what many people come to the camp seeking to achieve. Thus we need to be their angels and serve them in the same way the Archangel serves the Mother of God.

So if the ministers play the role of the Archangel Gabriel, it follows that the participants, those who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit should play the role of Mary. Mary is given a mission by the angel and she carries out this mission even though it is rather difficult especially in her new state. She brings Jesus to her relative and there is no outward show of Him but rather, He is concealed within her. Do we who have received the Holy Spirit do such a thing?

Let’s examine this a little further. Do we carry Jesus around like Mary does, in such a way as to give joy to others even though they might not be able to outwardly see Him? I tend to not be a huge fan of extreme evangelists who keep preaching of fire and brimstone and how everybody must accept Jesus as Lord or they’ll go to hell or something. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it’s a sin or anything; I’m just saying that I just don’t think it’s effective. I think we should just follow Mary’s example and start with our own circle of friends and family and that we should carry Jesus to them such that it will give the joy that only He can give.

Let’s just embark on that mission then, all of us who have received new life after our YISS. Let us serve those around us with a spirit of Love and Joy such that those around us can see and even feel the Joy of Jesus within us. Let us start small, with our family and close friends and just spread His Love.

Right, I know I said I was going to reflect on the Annunciation but then went on to talk about the visitation and I apologise but I felt that putting them together might be a little clearer. I have a strange feeling my next post will continue on from here and look at the Magnificat, Mary’s beautiful song of praise to God.

Revival

Aloha,

I've decided to revive my moribund blog and change it up a bit...

First, I will actually post stuff regularly...

Second, I will not post pictures of my holiday/exchange in Hawaii anymore... (You can just get those pictures by adding me on facebook). I might put other pictures up though.

Third, I will be using my blog as something to help me wih my quiet time and reflections.

In other words, this blog will be a *gasp* religious blog. I know last time it had some religious elements but now it will have a lot more. I think, knowing who I am and what I enjoy doing, this will also have reviews on movies, books and comic books probably. It might have some poetry I might write, if I actually start writing poetry again. It might have some advertising of events that might happen like upcoming plays that I think would be awesome or movies that I really want to watch and stuff.

Yup, that's it... The DNR has been removed from my blog and now like people who've had a near death experience, this blog is going to do things different. It will really start living now...

Mahalo for reading...