Monday of Late
Advent
December 22, 2014 8:30am
Magnificat – that is the name we normally give to the prayer of
praise that Mary offers in today’s gospel.
This word Magnificat is the first word in the Latin version of this prayer.
It means magnify, so Mary is saying that her “soul magnifies the greatness of the Lord.”
The word magnify means to make something larger.
Obviously, Mary does not make God
larger, but she recognizes that God is larger than herself.
She humbly looks to God as the
almighty One.
She listens and accepts God’s
message as the direction her life is to take.
She sees herself as a servant of
God on this earth.
Mary also magnifies the Lord by making other people larger.
Specifically, she is sensitive to
the last and the least among us.
In her prayer, she discerns that
God is turning things upside down.
Mary says, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the
lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent
away empty.”
Mary magnifies or makes larger
the little ones of this world and recognizes in God’s treatment of herself that
this is how God treats all peoples.
She implicitly foresees how her
son will treat the little, the last, the least, and the lost.
She implicitly foresees the
parable on the Last Judgment about the separation of the sheep and goats and
that our treatment of these persons, whether or not we magnify them, will determine whether we are sheep or goats.
So, there is a beauty and a depth
to the prayer that Mary offers here today – the Magnificat.
