Readings:
1 Samuel 1:24-38
Luke 1:46-56
”My soul proclaims the
greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God
my savior.”
The gospels we meditated upon the previous
two-dawn masses - the annunciation and the Visitation narratives
- lead us to today's Magnificat. Tooday's gospel is Mary's song of praise
and thanksgiving for what the Lord has done to her. But not only that. The
Magnificat is also to be the greatest New Testament song of liberation. In two
points, then, let us meditate on the Magnificat: first, as a song of praise
and thanksgiving; second, as a song
of liberation.
1. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the
Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” The "Mary" we have
today is quite different from the Mary we saw at the annunciation two
days ago. At the annunciation, we saw a
speechless Mary, a silent Mary, and a Mary who limits her words in just two
brief occasions. Today, we have a Mary who explodes with words, a Mary who echoes to the world her immortal song of joy,
a Mary who fills her lips with praise, and
thanksgiving.
Yesterday, we learned the wisdom why a shared
joy is a complete joy. That is why Mary visits her cousin,
Elizabeth. She shares her joy with another soul and her joy becomes complete.
But today, Mary not only shares her joy with anybody. Today, she directs
herself, her very self, the totality of herself, in praise and gratitude, to the cause of her joy. Her very words: are revealing her deepest sentiments and honest
feelings: "My soul proclaims..." "My spirit rejoices..."
And if her whole being rejoices, it is
because of her Savior God who has done great things unto her.
The first message of Mary's song is clear: every
blessing is worth thanking! This may be so simple, yet very fundamental. How many times do we remember to thank? Perhaps
out of ten good and beautiful moments of grace we remember to thank but only
once. Quite a poor percentage. This seems no better than those ten lepers whom
Jesus cleansed. Only one remembers to come back and say, "Thank
you!" Mary's song is a reminder. Mary, on the first place, did not
even ask for heaven's fullness of grace. But
when she receives it, she pays it with total gratitude. She thanks heaven with all her being. Indeed,
Mary’s Magnificat is a favorite to every grateful soul.
2. "His
mercy is from age to age to those who fear him... remembering his promise of
mercy; the promise he made to our father, to Abraham and his children forever.”
Mary's song is not only of joy and
thanksgiving. Hers is also a song of liberation. The song itself is
revolutionary. And it is revolutionary in the sense that the liberation it
promises must be inaugurated by turning things upside down. This liberation is of two levels: personal and social.
a. The lowly servant shall be called blessed
by all ages. This is Mary's own vindication. This is Mary's way of expressing
that liberation is in fact working in her very self. And she perceives it as
the most righteous verdict of heaven. To the
eyes of the world, Mary is no more than a
poor, ordinary and insignificant woman who draws her water from the well. But to the eyes of heaven, she is that
lowly virgin whose humble and uncompromising
obedience has broken the aged chain of sin and guilt, which has imprisoned man
to his own greed, thus depriving himself all
the more of God's abundance and love.
b. The liberation
promised in Mary's canticle is even more concrete and
social as it includes, in an explicit way,
humanity's emancipation from all forms of
slavery. And what make it more divine and heavenly are the feet that such
liberation is the very way that God dispenses his justice to his people. God shows the strength of his arm
by confusing the proud in their conceit: He raises the lowly by dethroning the
mighty. He fills the poor and the hungry
while driving the rich away empty. Here,
God's justice seems to appear
paradoxical once more, for in many occasions we
see that it really is. The weakest is the strongest while the poorest is the richest.
The revolutionary character of Mary's canticle is
no surprising. The Messiah in Mary's womb, the Christ who shall be with us
soon, will unceasingly teach us how
things must turn upside down at the reign of God. True greatness consists in lowliness, as the lowest shall be the highest and the last shall be the first. This is
the effect of grace. Grace by nature is liberative. Thus, it challenges us to
work for liberation, just as Mary who is filled with all grace cannot stop
herself but echo her song of liberation.