Living the Magnificat

“ ‘Blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord’ and Mary said, ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord..’”
 

Many of us are familiar with the the canticle of Mary, her song of praise to God for having conceived the Savior. But some of us may not realize that the bulk of this canticle comes from the Old Testament. Mary was a faithful Jewish girl who knew the words of the Lord. These words come from Hannah in 2 Samuel. Hannah had prayed for a child for years and years. In those days, when one was sick or having another health problem such as infertility, it was believed to be a chastisement due to their personal sin. You can just imagine the way the community must have looked at this woman. One day she was in the temple crying and mumbling prayers, for what probably seemed like the billionth time, instead of having pity on her the Rabbi accused her of being drunk. What an insult! Still she prayed. She hoped. She believed that God would rescue her. When the day came for her prayer to be answered she went to the temple to give thanks and thus we have this canticle. Little did she know that centuries later, a humble virgin from Nazareth would repeat these words and the child to be born would rescue us all.

Each of us is called to give thanks and praise to God. To remember his promises and His might. Yet so often we look around at a suffering, broken, and cruel world and all we can do is beg for relief. Our prayer for you this month is that you would invite Mary into the parts of you that need the most healing. Perhaps you are angry at a family member, the Church or even Christ Himself. Perhaps you’ve been through something terrible and the pain of that situation has you
weighed down in grief and mistrust. Give her access to the areas where you can’t forgive, can’t pray, can’t even begin to think about. She wants to give you the hope of her Magnificat. -Maggie Ness