Rather unusually, on this Sunday one of the lectionary readings can be repeated. ‘The Magnificat’ is a rapturous song of praise that Mary offers to God when she realizes she is to be the Mother of Jesus – ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord’. It can be used in place of the Psalm, and then heard for a second time as the centerpiece of the Gospel reading.
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| The Visitation -- Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1556) |
Mary has walked to a distant village to visit to her cousin
Elizabeth. It is from Elizabeth that she receives final confirmation of how
remarkable her position is: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the
fruit of your womb’. Like the Magnificat itself, these words have also become a
widely used and long established prayer in the worship of the Church.
The Magnificat, which is unique to Luke’s Gospel, has been
said and sung innumerably many times over many centuries. This is powerful
testimony to its deep spiritual significance for Christian believers in every
time and place.
Oddly, though, sheer familiarity can actually deafen us to the mysterious story it reflects. God’s mighty work of redemption, the point and purpose of the whole created cosmos, begins in a remote part of the Roman Empire with the unexpected pregnancy of a teenage girl from a tiny village. It is Mary’s acceptance of what might well bring her shame and degradation that inaugurates the spiritual transformation of human kind through the life and death of Jesus.
Oddly, though, sheer familiarity can actually deafen us to the mysterious story it reflects. God’s mighty work of redemption, the point and purpose of the whole created cosmos, begins in a remote part of the Roman Empire with the unexpected pregnancy of a teenage girl from a tiny village. It is Mary’s acceptance of what might well bring her shame and degradation that inaugurates the spiritual transformation of human kind through the life and death of Jesus.
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| Roman ruins |
‘From now on all generations will call me blessed’. This is
such an unlikely scenario that Mary’s words seem absurd. The world in which she
lived was a man's world dominated by one of the greatest and most enduring empires in human
history. And yet she was right. The Roman Empire has vanished so completely, only a few archeological
traces remain, while at Christmas billions of people, to whom Caesar and Herod are
literally ancient history, will nevertheless give thanks for Mary’s role in
their redemption, and call her ‘blessed’. What plainer evidence could there be
that God has indeed ‘brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted
up the lowly’?
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