Magnificat

[from my parish bulletin]

As Catholics we often get asked questions about the Virgin Mary. Some Catholics even feel uneasy about the Church’s veneration of the Mother of God, yet this respect we show Mary is Scriptural.

In the first chapter of Saint Luke, Sacred Scripture tells us the angel Gabriel was sent to a town of Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph. Thus we refer to Mary as the Virgin Mary. Later in that same chapter Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth who greets her saying, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth recognizes Mary’s divine motherhood, that she is the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ who is God.

Verse forty-six of this same first chapter of Luke records the beautiful and God-inspired words of Mary referred to traditionally as the Magnificat. Mary exclaims, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.”

The Word of God, Scripture itself, reveals to us that Mary would be called blessed by all ages. Ask yourself now what Christians proclaim, believe and live out this passage from Sacred Scripture today? In the Catholic Church we continue to uphold and respect the Blessed Virgin Mary truly as a blessed woman, chosen by God to participate in the salvation of mankind, because Scripture reveals it so.

The Catholic Church proclaims today what Scripture reveals, that all ages would call Mary blessed. May Our Lady pray for us and always guide us to greater love and knowledge of her Son.