“AND THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.”
“My soul magnifies the Lord…”
As Christmas approaches, we’ve experienced so much brokenness, pain, and loss—physically, mentally, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. I find myself mourning for so many people, our nation, our world, and for broken expectations. It’s a hard and exhausting place to be for everybody. I find myself crying out to God in prayer, “Where are you? Help me to know you are here, or that you are coming. Please help me find room in my heart for you, for the ways you may surprise me.”
Today, we encounter Mary, Mother of Jesus, our Mother. She and her people also find themselves seeking God in the midst of unmet expectations, great suffering, and darkness. After saying YES to being the mother of God, she visits her cousin, Elizabeth, and gives a testimony of her faith in God’s salvation.
Mary’s song of praise is known as the Magnificat, which means “magnifies.” As we know, to “magnify” means to enlarge, or “to make great.” Mary chooses to “magnify the Lord” and God’s ways. She deeply believed in a God who helps us, who is near us. Because God is great, and is one of surprises and reversals. God looks on the humble unknown to society, just like Mary. She magnifies God’s goodness, faithfulness, and YES to her and her people, to the poor and powerless. She reveals God’s gracious activity in our world. What our culture and society “magnify” with value, God turns upside down, the exact reversal Jesus announces in the Beatitudes.
And what helps me today is her heartfelt gratitude for what God has unexpectedly done. Thus, Mary’s song is a good example of humility—recognition that the source of her life, gifts, blessings is God. It’s about what God has done. May we be surprised by God and say YES.
What is my heart “magnifying” at this time? In what ways has God looked upon me with favor? Mary gives me a model of prayer, rooted in the past but open to the future. The prayer invites me to recognize and savor the gifts I have received from God. Perhaps I could write my own Magnificat and pray over it, recognizing the great things God has done for me and through me.
David Romero SJ