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.