The magnificat: Mary's Own Prayer
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
We have many reasons to give due consideration and prayerful
reflection to the Magnificat. It is the longest discourse
recorded of Mary in Divine Revelation. Many are the stories
written telling about the heart of Mary as shown in that
beautiful prayer. Certainly inspired, it was pronounced by Mary
herself when she was carrying the Divine Child in her womb. It
is the perfect act of humility and of profound humble adoration.
It is part of the Church's liturgy and has been such since the
very first centuries. It has been recited or sung daily by
ancient monks and hermits and other Religious who have
consecrated themselves to God. It is indeed the prayer of
consecrated souls and all clients of Mary.
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior, because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
for behold henceforth all generations will call me blessed
because He Who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy
is His Name; and His Mercy is from generation to generation to
those who fear Him. He has shown might with His Arm, He has
scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He has put
down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the lowly. He
has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent
away empty. He has given help to Israel, His servant, mindful of
His mercy - even as He Spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to
His posterity forever." (Luke 1:46-55) All the great biblical
masters of the ages have affirmed that there are four parts to
the Magnificat. In the first strophe, Mary expresses her
gratitude to God; in the second, she praises God for his power,
His holiness and His mercy; in the third, she compares how
differently God deals with the proud and the humble; in the
fourth, she recalls that all the ancient prophecies to the Jews
are now being fulfilled in the Messiah, Who was at that moment
present in her womb.
Mary's Gratitude to God
Taking out some of the salient features of the Magnificat, we
begin with Mary's gratitude, "My soul magnifies the Lord." My
soul adores, praises, and honors the Lord. The stress is always
on 'the Lord.'
What a contrast between Mary's attitude and that of so many
people over the centuries, including our own day. Think of all
the honor medals and statues dedicated to human beings, who are
sadly undeserving of praise, but rather often condemnation. Who
were the great heroes about whom we read and whose exploits we
memorized; the men who ran roughshod over human beings, and who
destroyed empires in order to achieve their ambitions. We all
know about Napoleon and how few remember the Pope he forced into
exile. How strange that we should be so ready to praise weak
human flesh that dying soon decays. Let us examine our
consciences on how seldom we praise God. Yet faith tells us that
prayers of praise and adoration are the most important form of
prayer. For, unless this form of prayer is at least implicit, we
are not even praying. Unless we praise God, magnifying Him, we
are not acknowledging God for Who He is and ourselves for what
we are. How God longs for us to tell Him: "How great Thou art, O
Lord, how great Thou art!" And by contrast, how unimportant, how
trifling is everything and everyone else. Having said, "My soul
magnifies the Lord," Mary immediately adds, "And my spirit
rejoices in God my Savior." Joy follows on praising God.
God really wants us to be happy. He wants us to rejoice in Him,
but on His conditions: in doing His Will and not the world's or
the evil spirit's or as our natural inclinations urge. What a
lie to think that joy is found in our self will. Hell was born
of that myth. Not even speaking of Heaven, there is no other
true joy on earth except in God, with God, and because God
became man, like God. Mary had a clear idea of who she was, that
she was the Mother of the Messiah, even as Elizabeth had told
her she was the 'mother of the Lord Who made her.' Mary also
knew by whose favor she was thus blessed. Compare the two
phrases "lowliness of His handmaid" and "He that is mighty has
done great things for me." God did do great things for Mary
because in her own estimation she was His lowly servant. This is
all God asks us to tell Him: "You alone are mighty and I, except
for You, am nothing; and the moment my conscience tells me You
have spoken, I don't for a second wish to hesitate doing what
you ask." The only reason why Mary became, under God, the Mother
of God is because she was so profoundly aware of being the
servant of the Lord. So ends the first part of the Magnificat.
Mary Praises God for His Power, Holiness and Mercy
The second strophe is Mary's praise of God. As reason and faith
tell us, God does not need our poor prayers, but He wants them
and wants us to recognize Him for what He is. According to Mary,
He is Power, He is Holiness and Mercy. How is God Power? He is
Power because He can do whatever He wills. Perhaps the clearest
sign of our being just creatures, is the distance that separates
what we want to do from what we can do. Not so with God. He had
only to will our souls into existence and we were made, existing
only because God wills it. Withdrawing His Will, we would be
absolutely nothing again. In our day when power is the watchword
inspiring fear into people's hearts, we have to keep our
balance. I am not to be impressed by human power nor do I fear
what any human being can do to me. The One I adore is the only
One I fear, God Almighty. As long as He is with me, who can do
me harm? He will be with me as long as I am with Him. We have
infinity at our disposal, provided we have humility and the
honesty to acknowledge that God alone has the right to tell us
what to do. No wonder the saints were so powerful; they had
Almighty power at their disposal. How is God Holiness? He is
Holiness because He is Wholly Other. He alone must be; He alone
cannot not be. Everything else, including ourselves, need not
be. What do we mean by "growing in holiness?" We mean that we
are to grow more and more like God What in the last analysis
makes God Holy? He is utterly unworldly. God does not need the
world, even though there would be no world without Him. Let us
ask our Lord to enlighten us as to what it means to be
unworldly.
When I am among people who make a profession of pursuing
sanctity, I tell them, "In God's Name don't be worldly!" I do
not have to tell you what worldly means. Look at the values the
world respects and considers important. The unworldly are not
preoccupied with things of time and space, but have their minds
and hearts on eternity. Such persons are not enamored of this
world, because they know this world and all its vanities will
soon pass away.
How is God Mercy?
God is Merciful for He loves the sinner even as He hates the
sin. His mercy is boundless and His kindness towards the weak
and fallen is proverbial. Let us remember that though we have
sinned deeply and often, God loves us still. His love is greater
than our sin. He wants us to become holy, more holy because we
have sinned. He wants us to become more humble, more patient,
more prayerful than we would have been had we not always sinned.
Nowadays, many books of spiritual counsel warn us not to be so
conscious of our sins, but to keep thinking of God's Love. Truly
we cannot think of God's Love too much, but not to look at our
sins is nonsense! It is precisely that combination of Divine
Love and our sins that brings us to God's Mercy. That is what
mercy implies. The Eternal Infinite Love of the Trinity became
Divine Mercy only when man had sinned and when God's Love could
exercise its benevolence and forgiveness towards the sinner.
Unless we keep contraposing God's Love with our sins, we are
living in a dream world, because the principal object of God's
Love is His Mercy shown to sinners.
Mary Compares the Lot of the Humble and the Proud
Next, Mary compares the lot of the humble and the proud. Compare
these statements: "He has scattered the proud", "He has put down
the mighty", "He has sent the rich away empty", versus "He has
exalted the lowly", "He has filled the hungry with good things."
It is not so much Mary telling us these things, but Jesus in her
womb is speaking through His Mother's lips. When He was older
and began His public ministry, this is almost the theme of His
Gospels. God exalts the humble; He humbles the proud. We are
inclined to take this too mechanically and mistakenly suppose
that this reward of the humble and retribution of the proud
always takes place regularly in our lives. Dear friends, I wish
it did. Sadly but obviously the proud get prouder and are
exalted. Who make the headlines? Who are honored and praised and
who are ignored in this world? But no matter! The span of human
life on earth, even the longest life, is short compared to
eternity. That is why my faith in Heaven and Hell is
strengthened when I read the Magnificat, and I am assured of
what God eventually does. Heaven is the glorification of
humility, and hell is the humiliation of pride. Thank God that
Heaven and Hell are both real.
Mary Tells Us that God Keeps His Promises
Lastly, Mary tells us that God keeps His promises. His
faithfulness in the face of the disloyalty of the Jewish people
over the centuries before Christ is hardly credible. We reread
the Old Testament. It tells of one dreary failure after another
of their failure to live up to the Covenant that Yahweh had made
with them; they constantly relapsed into idolatry and resisted
God's commands. Yet, after their infidelity, murdering their
Prophets, ignoring Yahweh's laws and resisting His Will, there
was nevertheless a Covenant between Yahweh and His people. They
had failed Him miserably and sadly, but as Mary says, God does
not fail. How well have we, with whom God has entered into a New
Covenant, kept our part of this covenant? Our Sinai is the
"Sermon on the Mount", and our Decalogue is the "Beatitudes."
Read them and weep! God, however, does not fail us even when we
fail Him. How we need this reassurance, that in spite of our
infidelities, God will not abandon us. We must remain serene and
calm and never allow ourselves to be discouraged. God, our God,
is a faithful God.
Prayer
Mother of Jesus and Mother of God, teach us something of your
quiet peacefulness and childlike confidence in your Son. Help us
to trust Him, especially when things seem to go wrong. Help us
to believe in Him as you did, that the promises He makes to us
He will fulfill. Help us never to worry or be sad but always
rejoice like you, in God, your Savior and ours, your beloved Son
and our dearest Lord. Amen.
