Holyrood Church 715 West 179 Street, Upper West side Manhattan, USA, 212-923-3770

Maria the Subversive

 

 

Good morning, happy Tuesday, and many blessings.

 

The Canticle of Mary (Luke 1:46-56) was one of the canticles of the community of the first Christians. It reveals the level of awareness or consciousness, and the firmness, of the faith which animated her interiorly. Sung in the community, this Canticle of Mary teaches us to pray and to sing. Mary begins by proclaiming the change which is taking place in her life under the loving gaze of God, full of mercy. Because of this, she sings joyfully: “I rejoice in God, my Savior”.

 

Mary’s song is a song of praise. She is not just sharing her thoughts with her cousin. She is saying that the Lord is great, and her spirit is rejoicing with the news that has come to her.

 

Today, Mary’s song is called The Magnificat, meaning “my soul magnifies the Lord” in Latin. It can be heard in Catholic services as well as Lutheran and Anglican. Her song has been copied into the Book of Common Prayer and for most Protestant churches, is sung during the Advent season.

 

This is a revolutionary example of praise given by a young girl who is carrying the one and only son of God. She no doubt was feeling some anxiety as she lived in a community that would ostracize her. She was engaged, but not officially married. She was a virgin, yet she could not prove that to the common people.

 

Three types of revolutionary thought begin in the words of Mary’s song. Her words in verse 51, “He has done a mighty deed with his arm; he has scattered the proud…” convey a moral revolutionary thought. She is speaking of the death of pride. Our pride can hold us back from acting on God’s direction and being obedient. Secondly, we can look at her song in a social revolutionary frame of mind. Mary says, “he has toppled the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.” Mary knows she is nothing special to the eyes of the world. She is a poor young girl who is to be married. But God is looking at the heart of a person, as he did with Mary.

 

Lastly, we see an economic revolution: “He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” If we are a Christian society, then why do we have hungry people? God’s word tells us that our status at the bank will not matter when God comes again. To live in obedience to God, we should not gain wealth and let our fellow brother or sister go hungry. Mary’s song has strong moral, social, and economic threads throughout.

 

This is why in a 1933 sermon, German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Mary’s song “the most passionate, the wildest, one might say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.” Bonhoeffer, who would be hung 12 years later for resisting Nazism, added: “This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary ... This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of … Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world... ”

 

Ultimately, The Magnificat is about a cosmic inversion — a turning of the tables. Or as we said a few days ago, turn the world upside down. The lowest become the highest and the highest become the lowest. It’s no surprise that Mary’s song is popular among the poor, excluded, and oppressed, not only in Latin America but also here in the United States. The oligarchy and ruling class have always been alarmed by these radical and subversive verses. The Magnificat is as a call on the affluent everywhere to seek a new relationship with the poor and marginalized, one that begins with listening to them

 

The canticles are the thermometer of the life of the community. They reveal the degree of consciousness and commitment. I invite you to examine and write a song of your community at this time

 

Blessings,

 

Fr. Luis+

Date news: 
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 - 11:00

Ministry at the time of Coronavirus (Covid 19): Prevent, cure and accompany

Now we have to shape what some have started calling; The Church at Home. Although I keep asking myself; What do those who do not have a home do? For this reason, at the same time, I am declaring today in our Holyrood Church a Lenten day of prayer, fasting and reading the Bible in the Time of the Coronavirus.

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