The Magnificat

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior’” (Lk 1:46-47).

A lady in Asia once told me: When I read those words, I could spend hours and hours just contemplating them and their beauty. “My soul magnifies the Lord.”

Elizabeth had said beautiful things to Our Lady: “Blessed is she who believed that the promise made to her by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Lk 1:45). Our Lady's soul then pours forth in the Magnificat in her humility. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

We could ask Our Lord that our spirit might always rejoice in God Our Savior—and especially these days as we journey with the Holy Family, watching them a little closer, knowing that each year there are new graces for us to go a little deeper, to see new things, to appreciate their virtue more deeply, to try and learn from it and put it into practice, so that we place ourselves on that journey, savoring all the spiritual riches that are there—and that also our spirit would rejoice in God Our Savior.

The Holy Family, along that journey—they had a lot of discomforts. It was a beautiful journey—beautiful to look at, but not so beautiful to be on and participate in. It had its discomforts and its challenges.

Joseph must have had his concerns when they were deciphering the plans of God to leave their home and all the preparations and all the people who could have afforded them some type of support, to leave everything and everybody and go off into the night. Joseph must have had to think about ‘what if.’

What if things go wrong? What if things don't work out? He had to be ready for all eventualities.

In the rural place in Ireland where my mother was from, she used to say there was a local remedy for women who went over their time in their pregnancy. They would put her into a horse and cart, and later over a very bad Murham road for a few hours, and it always worked. The woman went into labor and delivered.

Happily, obstetrics has progressed a little bit more from those times. But still in the times of Our Lady and St. Joseph, that was a possibility. Not too many obstetricians would advise a woman advanced in her months to spend a lot of time on the back of a donkey. And so, they had to work out all these things with initiative.

The angel Gabriel didn't appear to them again and work everything out for them. But in spite of the contradictions or the discomforts, their spirits were rejoicing in God their Savior because they had Christ with them—the light, the source of their peace and their joy.

Along the pathway of our vocation, when we are close to Christ, like Joseph and Mary were, then we also have great reasons to rejoice, irrespective of what may be happening on the superficial aspects of life. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, because he has looked at the lowliness of his handmaid (Lk 1:46).

Our Lady focuses on humility. These words are of a singular beauty. They are reminiscent of parts of the Old Testament.

Our Lady glorifies God for making her the mother of Our Savior, which is why future generations will call her blessed. God always has a preference for the humble. He has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid.

Lord, help me to see these days how you want me to be more humble, to disappear, to see perhaps aspects of my pride that I can do something about, possibly aspects that I haven't seen before, that with these coming hours and days that the Church gives us, we can learn again the lessons of humility, deeper lessons.

You probably heard the story of the French farmer who was an atheist, and his family was Catholic. On Christmas night they were going to a Christmas Mass but he stayed at home beside the fire. Then there was a tap at the window. He looked up and he saw it was a little bird, a little bird who was attracted by the light of the fire and the warmth and the security.

The farmer felt a bit sorry for the little bird and so he got up and put on his overcoat and his boots. He went out into the yard. It was snowing, and he opened the barn door and put on the light to see if this little bird might fly into the barn to find the shelter, warmth, and security that it seemed to be looking for.

But the little bird wouldn't fly into the barn. And so, he began to rush around the yard gesticulating and trying to shoo it into the barn. But even less would the little bird fly into the barn.

He began to think, Maybe, for this little bird, I'm like a big bad monster. Maybe I'm frightening the life out of this poor little bird. There's only one way in which I could get this little bird to fly into the barn, and that is, if, for just a few minutes, I could become a bird.

If I could become a bird, maybe I could fly in front of this little bird and it might just follow me. And I might be able to lead it into the barn to find shelter and warmth and security.

While he was thinking of these things, the local church bell rang. It was midnight on Christmas night. Suddenly he realized what he had been thinking, if I could become a bird.

And suddenly, the whole mystery of the Incarnation became clear in his mind. Why God became a man, why He didn't just become a man, but He became a baby, so that He might be able to lead us as the Good Shepherd, that we might follow Him into the green pastures.

He fell to his knees in the snow and he prayed for the first time in his life, as the great mystery of the Incarnation became clearer to him.

Well, for a man to become a bird would involve a great limitation. If we were to become birds with all of our talents and abilities—maybe we could sing like angels—and now we have to be perched on a telegraph wire, and crow like a crow. Or maybe we might have to become bird-brained. It would be a great limitation for man to become a bird. All the things we could do, and now we're limited to the possibilities of a bird.

But for God to become man, for infinity to become finite, that's a much greater thing. The chasm that has to be bridged for that to happen is something enormous.

So, God loves humility. Our Lady realizes that this is why God has looked to her. “He has looked upon the humility of his handmaid. Behold, all generations will call me blessed.”

Blessed, because of how God has used me to be his mother. Because he is mighty. “He who is mighty has done great things to me, and holy is his name (Lk 1:49).

Our Lady doesn't boast about her own virtue. “He who is mighty who has done great things to me.”

As we move towards Bethlehem, we could have that same spirit of recognition and gratitude. Humble souls are grateful souls because they realize that everything they have has come from God.

I am nothing, I have nothing, I can do nothing. Everything is a gift. All the material things. There are also all the great spiritual messages that God gives to us. It's a great gift that He hasn't given to other people. And possibly, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us in the ordinary things of every day.

A young mother in Singapore told me once how she had a baby boy who was now three, so she decided it was time to start having a crib in the house for Christmas. She got a small little crib in their two-room flat.

But she found that the three-year-old took the pieces of the crib and began to deposit them around the flat. She found Our Lady under the couch, and she found St. Joseph behind the curtain, and she found the angels in the bedroom. She managed to recover most of the pieces of the crib, except she couldn't find the baby Jesus.

For three days, she looked high up and low down for the baby Jesus. Then one morning, she opened the washing machine and there was the baby Jesus sitting on top of the washing.

She said, You know, I've been attending recollections in Opus Dei for many years and I keep hearing the message that we have to find God in the ordinary things of every day. When I saw the baby Jesus sitting on top of the washing I thought, really, the Holy Spirit is working overtime to give me this message.

But then I began to wonder how on earth the baby Jesus got into the washing machine. It took me another few days to work it out— that my son must have put the baby Jesus into the pocket of his trousers. The trousers went to the washing, and out came baby Jesus in the washing. The Holy Spirit can be speaking to us in all the ordinary moments.

“How great the value of humility!” we're told in The Way. “It is not of her faith, nor of her charity, nor of her immaculate purity that Our Mother speaks in the house of Zachary. Her joyful hymn sings: ‘Since he has looked upon my humility, all generations will call me blessed’” (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 598).

Our Lord has a special regard for humility. When we try and grow in this virtue, we make God happy because we become more aware of our nothingness, of our limitations. It opens our eyes to the great things that God has done in us and through us, and of the great things that He wants to do in the future in us and through us.

St. Pope John Paul II says: “[In the words of the Magnificat...], “Mary's personal experience, the ecstasy of her heart, shines forth. In them shines a ray of the mystery of God, the glory of his ineffable holiness, the eternal love which, as an irrevocable gift, enters into human history.”

Our Lady has a great sense of who she is and who her Son is.

Don Javier says, “The Magnificat is a ‘fabric’ woven from words of Sacred Scripture. It shows us how Mary lived in a permanent conversation with the Word of God, and thus, with God Himself.…Therefore, let us learn from Mary and speak personally with the Lord, pondering and preserving God's words in our lives and hearts so that they may become true food for each one of us” (Letter of Javier Echevarría, May 2008).

We are reminded that we are the instruments in the hand of the artist. God wants to do special things in us and through us, in spite of the things that go wrong, or the contradictions.

Many things went wrong, in a sense, on the journey to Bethlehem: rejection, things not working out as they had planned, changes of plans, calling for a new initiative.

Joseph, we are told in In Joseph's Workshop, showed “initiative and responsibility in all he was asked to do in solving those problems.” (St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, Point 40).

We can ask St. Joseph that we might have those same virtues these days in the face of things that might seem to go wrong, but maybe there is some other great divine plan taking place as there was in Bethlehem: doors closed in their face, no hospitality, no reception.

But Joseph doesn't throw in the towel; doesn't throw his hat on the ground and say, I've had enough, I'm going home. He looks for a solution. With humility, he sees that God must have some other great divine plan here. There are so many situations in our lives where that sort of thinking is very relevant.

There was a parish priest once who came to a parish in October and decided that he would prepare all the organizations of the parish to be very focused on the celebration of Christmas.

So every organization of the parish had a special role to play. The children of the parish were to have a procession up the center aisle of the church on Christmas night carrying the baby Jesus.

They were to be dressed as Our Lady, St. Joseph, the angels, the shepherds, the magi. He trained them very well and he taught these children how to walk very slowly. It’s a very difficult thing to teach small children how to walk slowly. They practiced it so well that they were able to walk slowly.

On Christmas night they processed up the center aisle of the church. Our Lady was carrying the baby Jesus. But she was concentrating so much and with so much solemnity that she missed a step halfway up the aisle. She fell on all fours.

The baby Jesus went flying and sustained a broken arm and substantial head injuries. It was now in four separate pieces. They picked up the pieces as best they could. They recovered their dignity and solemnity and continued with the procession which arrived at the crib.

Then the parish priest was waiting at the crib because he was supposed to take this baby Jesus very solemnly and deposit it with great dignity in the crib. But when he saw his baby Jesus in four separate parts, he said to them, Look at what you have done. The ten-year-old St. Joseph piped up and said, Father, you did say it was the year of the handicapped.

But the parish priest was not amused. He took the four parts as best he could and he placed them in the crib. Then he went to his shaving kit, got his Elastoplast, and stuck the parts back together again. He sat on the front pew after the Mass to do a bit of personal private prayer on Christmas night.

He was contemplating the baby Jesus, and the thought came to him: The baby Jesus this year looks a bit like me after I've cut myself shaving, all stuck together with Elastoplasts, and a bit battered and bruised. Sure, I'm a bit battered and bruised myself, battered and bruised from life.

He found that he could relate a little bit more this year to this battered and bruised baby Jesus than the other perfect shining baby Jesus of the other years.

The following day, families came for their Christmas Mass, and afterwards, they went to the crib. There were fathers there who were unemployed or had a drinking problem and they saw this battered and bruised baby Jesus. They also found that they could relate rather well to this less than perfect baby Jesus, because they were very aware of their miseries.

Mothers came and they saw the less than perfect baby Jesus and they thought, Maybe I can't demand perfection from my children if the baby Jesus is like this.

The 16-year-olds came and saw the less than perfect baby Jesus and thought, I can't expect my boyfriend or my girlfriend to be Mr. or Mrs. Perfect if the baby Jesus is like this.

The 10-year-olds came and they were also very happy, because now they said, Mother can't demand perfection from us if baby Jesus is less than perfect.

The 3-year-olds came and they saw all the Elastoplasts on the head, and they wondered if baby Jesus might have a headache and perhaps he needed a Panadol.

So everybody in the parish got some sort of message from this baby Jesus. At the end of the Christmas period, this baby Jesus had been so successful that the parish priest was thinking of just leaving the crib there all year because it seemed to have spoken to everybody in the parish.

What seemed to be a tragedy, a catastrophe, turned out to be an enormous blessing. We learn to accept with humility the things that God sends us. We learn from Mary and Joseph all the lessons that they teach us along this journey.

The virtue of humility, we know, is the foundation of the whole of the Christian spiritual life. Blessed Álvaro said that only if we live in humility can we practice charity and unity.

We have to aim at being the last. Sometimes we don't realize how much Our Lord may be using us to do great things. Maybe we are given a grain of sand to bring in the course of our life and perhaps that grain of sand is something that God is waiting for, that He gives great importance to. It might be a little thing, but it could be very important.

There was a conductor of an orchestra once. He was conducting a great symphony, and at one stage in the symphony, there was some little sound that was to be made by a little triangular instrument that one person was supposed to touch at a certain moment.

But the person got distracted and missed their particular moment. The conductor stopped the whole orchestra because he missed that sound.

God, the conductor of the great symphony of the world and of society and of our life, may be waiting for our contribution like that little sound in that great symphony, which plays a great role to each one of us.

When we are humble, we will learn how to give ourselves in a greater way, to something greater than ourselves. We commemorate the great event of the Incarnation and we are reminded each year about something that’s greater than ourselves, something we have to lift up our eyes to, like Our Lady, to discover its beauty, its greatness, so that our soul truly may magnify the Lord.

We leave all the apostolic progress of the things that we are doing in the hands of God. Obviously. God wants us to sow an awful lot of seeds in an awful lot of souls. Every single soul that passes through this center has somehow been sent by God to learn things, to see things.

Maybe that fruit is going to come, over decades. But we are the ones who have to sow those seeds, building up that something greater than ourselves, and changing society. We can leave progress in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lady and St. Joseph, as they went to Bethlehem—they couldn't have had much idea of how their actions and their acceptance of God's Will and their living out of their vocation was going to have such an impact, of how what they were doing was going to form family life and homes for all eternity. Great things.

Our Lord will do great things with us if we are humble. “Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your domain” (Psalm 2:8).

St. Josemaría in The Forge, Point 591, says: “To give oneself sincerely to others is so effective that God rewards it with a humility filled with cheerfulness. That's what we see in the Magnificat, in the journey to Bethlehem: “a humility filled with cheerfulness.”

It's a virtue of great souls that find their reward in the act of giving, that giving enlarges the heart. Lord, help me to maintain and to strengthen my generosity.

When there's generosity and self-giving in the family, there's peace, there's serenity, there's joy. The whole journey of Our Lady to Elizabeth and to Bethlehem with St. Joseph, was a journey of continuous generosity that was renewed.

“His mercy is from generation to generation to those that fear Him. He has shown might with His arm. He has scattered the proud and the conceited of heart” (Lk 1:50-51).

Mary, open my eyes to see aspects of my pride that I haven't seen before, so that I may come to know myself a little better, that enemy within, that self. Help me to use these days and these weeks to grow a little bit more in that awareness.

“He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly” (Lk 1:52).

“God rejects the proud but gives His grace to the humble” (Jas 4:6, 1 Pet 5:5, Prov 3:34).

We have these days and weeks and hours to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to us through people, through places, through unlikely things that happen.

I was coming out from Tigoni a couple of years ago, driving Father Cormac Burke, and we happened to pull in behind a garbage truck, an old, disheveled garbage truck, just about managing to stay on the road, full of garbage. It looked as though it's almost collapsing.

But on the back of the garbage truck there was a quotation from none other than St. Augustine which said, “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.”

There we were, coming from Tigoni in all its power and glory, and the Holy Spirit uses the back of this garbage truck to send this powerful message, full of optimism. All of us have a future, and we know the Holy Spirit speaks to us in all sorts of ways and reminds us of the importance of this virtue of humility.

“‘He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away. He has received Israel as a servant, being mindful of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.’ Mary abode with her about three months, and she returned to her own home (Lk 1:53-56).

With humility, we come to see our own limitations; not that God made us to see those limitations with greater clarity. Maybe I can't manage this, I can't manage that, I wasn't created to do this particular thing. But that awareness of our limitations is no obstacle to being faithful.

Joseph must have been very aware of his limitations when he was resolving the problem of accommodation in Bethlehem. He was very faithful. He allowed God to work through his correspondence and allowed Him to work great things in his life, through his listening, through his obedience.

Later he was told to go to Egypt and remain there. They go from Nazareth to Bethlehem to an undisclosed destination—and not given reservation tickets or bookings. And the same thing to Egypt, to “remain there until I tell you” (cf. Mt 2:13-15, 19-23).

It's an undisclosed period of time. Very often vocation involves these sorts of uncertainties. God wants us to trust Him, to leave things in His hands, and to accept everything that comes.

A priest in Asia once stood up at a priest's meeting. They were talking about vocation. He said, I learned the meaning of vocation from a young, married woman in the States on my first missionary assignment. It was a young couple, age 25, and they were expecting their first baby. The woman's name was Nancy. And the baby turned out to be a Downs baby.

The doctor said to the woman, Are you ready to accept this baby? I can't tell you that it's going to be easy, but I can tell you that for every ounce of love that you put into this baby, you're going to get a pound of love in return. Nancy said, Yes, we're ready to accept whatever comes. This elderly missionary priest said, You know, I was very moved by that. Nobody says when they get married, We're going to have a handicapped child.

He said, I realized in those words of Nancy, there is the meaning of vocation. Vocation means that we're ready to accept whatever comes, at any stage, at any moment. Go here, go there, do this, do that.

That's how Our Lady and St. Joseph lived their vocation, and that's how the soul of Our Lady was able to magnify the Lord, and how her spirit was able to rejoice in God her Savior. She found her joy in fulfilling His will, in placing the needs of others above her own.

That's one of our tasks for these coming weeks: humility and family life—serving, passing unnoticed, avoiding excessive sensitivities, being cheerful, thanking God for the good things.

Blessed Álvaro said, “Let us seek only the glory of God, Deo Omnis Gloria. Let us live according to the constant lesson of the life of St. Josemaría: ‘Mine is to hide and disappear’ (Letter, January 28, 1975). Let each one fulfill the work of God, spending themselves in service to the others, knowing themselves to be the last.

“I am writing this to you with all the love that St. Josemaría has taught me to have for you. Let us be very humble. Let us not forget that St. Josemaría has always forewarned us that the great enemy is hidden in pride. I think it's time to ask Our Lord, through the intercession of St. Josemaría, to give us this grace, the holy hunger to disappear, to be the last, to obey with more finesse than ever.”

Mary, when we look at these beautiful words, when we read them, when we contemplate them, help me, help us, to be aware of their beauty, to thank you for them.

Help us also to reflect them in everything that we do, so that we also may truly magnify the Lord and our spirits may truly rejoice always in God Our Savior.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JSD