The Magnificat

The Magnificat

A SONG OF thanksgiving for yesterday and for today, with all the faith and hope of Israel woven into its structure, . . .

. . . the Magnificat has become the Church’s favorite song for recognizing the gratuitousness beyond all telling of the saving intervention of her Lord on behalf of the poor and lowly. It has never lost its actuality, and, at the present time, has been given a new vogue by movements that are, nevertheless, very different and unrelated, both as regards their inspiration and orientation. Students of “liberation theology” find in it the revolutionary ferment of the Gospel (“He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of lowly degree”), while the charismatics see it as the perfect model of all prayer of praise in the Spirit. Different emphases which bear witness to the inexhaustible wealth of this ancient canticle.

1. The Author of the Magnificat. Mary or the Early Church?

For a very long time the question of the origin of the Magnificat hardly arose at all. It was attributed to Mary purely and simply. Today, however, that we know more about the way the Gospels were composed and because the canticle has been the object of advanced study, it is thought that it is not to be attributed to Mary’s spontaneous inspiration alone. Both by its form and its constant references to hymns and prayers of the Old Testament, the Magnificat seems to be rather a reflection of liturgical usage in the early Church.

This new way of considering the canticle, far from weakening its meaning and denying us its use in Mary’s favor, brings out more strongly than ever the dynamic relationship Israel – Mary – the Church. If Luke decided – and here he reflects the thinking of the first Christian communities – to put the words of the Magnificat on Mary’s lips, it is because he saw in her the perfect type-figure of the community which is undergoing an experience of God’s marvels and which is rendering him thanks for the gift of salvation.

2. The Internal Dynamism of the Magnificat

The first source of the Magnificat’s richness is in the event that Mary is celebrating. It is, far and away, the most startling and decisive of the “great things” that God has wrought for the salvation of his people. It is also the reason why generations of Christians will make the Magnificat the favorite expression of their own personal experience of salvation in Christ Jesus. The underlying rhythm of Mary’s song of thanksgiving is the very same as the constituent element of faith: her experience here and now of God’s beneficent presence throws light on her future as well as on her past.

a) The personal-experience present tense

In the Bible, thanksgiving always has its source in a concrete personal experience of salvation.  Leaders of the people, war-heroes, prophets and psalmists express, each one in his own fashion, their amazement at the active presence of God in the very center of human history and life (e.g. the canticle of Moses and of the sons of Israel celebrating their liberation from the hands of the Egyptians Ex 15 – or the canticle of Anna – 2 S 2, 1-10 – singing of her joy and gratitude because the Lord has heard her prayer; see also Jgd 5, Jdt 16).

All of the first part of the Magnificat (1, 46-50) tends to express the unique experience Mary has lived through since the announcement of the conception of Jesus. Mary “magnifies the Lord” because she is aware that it is He who is active here and now in the very center of her being: she gives” thanks for the favor of this God who has looked upon her and who, for her sake, has done great things.

And if this God whom she is celebrating is the same God who intervened so often on behalf of his people, Mary may well call him her Savior, in a sense that goes beyond anything which could be foreseen or hoped for in the figurative and preparatory manifestations of the Old Covenant. In her Magnificat, Mary is singing of salvation made manifest in all its plenitude and brought to fulfilment in the very person of Jesus.

b) An Experience that opens on to the Future

Our Lady turns her eyes to the future. “Henceforth all generations will call me blessed”.  Mary is emphasizing the absolute newness and normative character of the Incarnation.  Henceforward, it is the Incarnation which will, more than any other of God’s signs or marvels, make manifest the holiness of his Name and of his love, from generation unto generation. It also expresses the concrete realism of the Incarnation as well as the depth of this mystery. The salvation given by God in Christ Jesus will have to stand the test of history and of man’s slow advance towards maturity: it will have to be accepted “from generation unto generation.”

c) God’s fidelity to his promises, from of old until today

The second part of the Magnificat (1, 51-55) shows clearly how balanced and how deep Mary’s faith was. Far from becoming locked up within herself, she widens the scope of her thanksgiving until it takes in the whole of God’s people and its history. Her awareness of God’s gift makes her peculiarly sensitive to the mystery the history of Israel contains: the mystery of the extraordinarily faithful love of the God of the Covenant.

Her status as a humble handmaid will also have made it possible for her to meditate on God’s usual ways and to discover his preference for the poor and lowly, Endowed with God’s gift and with the experience of her people, all Mary does is not merely an additional witness to the God of the covenant; her song is really a meditation, basically new and original, on the history of Israel – and of all mankind called to be saved – a meditation enlightened in a definitive way by the prodigious event which is taking place: the God who is Love is coming to save his people by becoming one of us: the man Christ Jesus.