The Magnificat
October 22, 2024
Hi! How is each and every one? Today we celebrate the
feast of Pope St. John Paul II. Remember
it was he who “proposed the addition of the Luminous Mysteries or Mysteries of
Light to the traditional pattern of the Holy Rosary in October 2002? His pontificate lasted 27 years from 1978 to
2005. Following is a short biography. “Open wide the doors to Christ,” urged John Paul II
during the homily at the Mass when he was installed as Pope in 1978. “Do not be afraid. Open, I say open wide the doors for
Christ. To his saving power open the
boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of
culture, civilization and development.
Do not be afraid. Christ knows
“that which is in man”. He alone knows
it.”
Hi! How is each and every one? Today we celebrate the
feast of Pope St. John Paul II. Remember
it was he who “proposed the addition of the Luminous Mysteries or Mysteries of
Light to the traditional pattern of the Holy Rosary in October 2002? His pontificate lasted 27 years from 1978 to
2005. Following is a short biography. “Open wide the doors to Christ,” urged John Paul II
during the homily at the Mass when he was installed as Pope in 1978. “Do not be afraid. Open, I say open wide the doors for
Christ. To his saving power open the
boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of
culture, civilization and development.
Do not be afraid. Christ knows
“that which is in man”. He alone knows
it.”
Born in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Jozef Wojtyla had lost his mother, father and older brother before his 21st birthday. Karol’s promising academic career at Karol’s Jagiellonian University was cut short by the outbreak of World War II. While working in a quarry and a chemical factory, he enrolled in an “underground” seminary in Krakow. Ordained in 1946, he was immediately sent to Rome where he earned a doctorate in theology. Back in Poland, a short assignment as assistant pastor in a rural parish preceded his very fruitful chaplaincy for university students. Soon he earned a doctorate in philosophy and began teaching that subject at Poland’s University of Lublin. Communist officials allowed him to be appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958, considering him a relatively harmless intellectual. They could not have been more wrong! He attended all four sessions of Vatican II and contributed especially to its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Appointed as archbishop of Krakow in 1964, he was named a cardinal three years later. Elected Pope in October 1978, he took the name of his short-lived, immediate predecessor. Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years. In time, he made pastoral visits to 124 countries, including several with small Christian populations. He promoted ecumenical and interfaith initiatives, especially the 1986 Day of Prayer for World Peace in Assisi. He visited Rome’s Main Synagogue and the Western Wall in Jerusalem; he also established diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel. He improved Catholic-Muslim relations and in 2001 visited a mosque in Damascus, Syria. The Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, a key event in John Paul’s ministry, was marked by special celebrations in Rome and elsewhere for Catholics and other Christians. Relations with the Orthodox Churches improved considerably during his ministry as Pope. “Christ is the center of the universe and of human history” was the opening line of his 1979 encyclical, redeemer of the Human Race. In 1995, he described himself to the United nations General Assembly as “a witness to hope.” His 1979 visit to Poland encouraged the growth of the Solidarity movement there and the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe 10 years later. He began World Youth Day and traveled to several countries for those celebrations. He very much wanted to visit China and the Soviet Union but the governments in those countries prevented that. One of the most well-remembered photos of his pontificate was his one-on-one conversation in 1983 with Mehmet Ali Agca, who had attempted to assassinate him two years earlier. In his 27 years of papal ministry, John Paul II wrote 14 encyclicals and five books, canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338 people. In the last years of his life, he suffered from Parkinson’s disease and was forced to cut back on some of his activities. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 and he was canonized by Pope Francis, in the presence of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in 2014, both ceremonies taking place on Divine Mercy Sunday.
Comment:
Before
John Paul’s funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square, hundreds of thousands of people
had waited patiently for a brief moment to pray before his body, which lay in
state inside St. Peter’s for several days.
The media coverage of his funeral was unprecedented, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, then dean of the College of Cardinals and later Pope Benedict XVI,
presided at the funeral Mass and concluded his homily by saying: “None of us can ever forget how, in that last
Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more
to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last item gave his blessing urbi et ordi [‘to the city and to the world’]. “We can be sure that our beloved Pope is
standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that sees us and blesses
us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We
entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God your Mother, who guided you each
day and who will guide you now to the glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.”
Quote:
In
his 1999 Letter to the Elderly, Pope
John Paul II wrote: “Grant, O Lord of
life,…when the moment of our definitive ‘passage’ comes, that we may face it
with serenity, without regret for what we shall leave behind. For in meeting you, after having sought you
for so long, we shall find once more every authentic good which we have known
here on earth, in the company of all those who have gone before us marked with
the sign of faith and hope…Amen.”
I came across The Magnificat of Our Lady and the corresponding commentary by Navarre Bible in my Gospel reading and I thought it good to share it in this week’s post. That means it will put a pause on the topic of our divine longing for justice. I thought it would shed more lights into our consideration on the topic given how Our Lady herself faced God’s intervention in her young life. And on the greatest mystery that asks for her total self giving and availability and which affects each and every one of us in the family of God on earth. Following is from Navarre Bible on The Magnificat.
The Magnificat by St. Luke 1: 46-55: And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.”
vv.46-55: Mary’s Magnificat
canticle is a poem of singular beauty.
It evokes certain passage of the Old Testament with which she would have
been very familiar (especially 1 Sam 2:1-10). Three stanzas may be
distinguished in the canticle: in the
first (vv. 46-50) Mary glorifies God for making her the Mother of the Savior,
which is why future generations will call her blessed; she shows that the Incarnation
is a mysterious expression of God’s power and holiness and mercy. In the second (vv. 51-53) she teaches us that
the Lord has always had a preference of the humble, resisting the proud and
boastful. In the third (vv. 54-55) she
proclaims that God, in keeping with his promise has always taken special care
of his chosen people—and now does them the greatest honor of all by becoming a
Jew (cf. Rom 1:3).
“Our
prayer can accompany and imitate this prayer of Mary. Like her, we feel the desire to sing, to
acclaim the wonders of God, so that all mankind and all creation may share our
joy” (Bl. J. Escriva, Christ Is Passing
By, 144).
vv.
48-49: Mary’s expression of humility causes St. Bede to exclaim: “It was fitting, then, that just as death
entered the world through the pride of our first parents, the entry of life
should be manifested by the humility of Mary” (In Lucae Evangelium exposition, in loc.).
“How
great is the value of humility!—Quia
respexit humilitatem…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 on my humility, all
generations will call me blessed’” (Bl. J. Escriva, The Way, 598).
God
rewards our Lady’s humility by mankind’s recognition of her greatness: “All generations will call me blessed.” This
prophecy is fulfilled every time someone says the Hail Mary, and indeed she is
praised on earth continually, without interruption. “From the earliest times the Blessed Virgin
is honored under the title of Mother of God, under whose protection the
faithful take refuge together in prayer in all their perils and needs. Accordingly, following the Council of Ephesus,
there was a remarkable growth in the cult of the people of God towards Mary, in
veneration and love, in invocation and imitation, according to her own
prophetic words: ‘all generations will
call be blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me’” (Vatican
II, Lumen gentium, 66).
v.
50: “And his mercy is on these who fear him from generation to
generation”: “At the very moment of the
Incarnation, these words open up a new perspective of salvation history. After
the Resurrection of Christ, this perspective is new on both the historical and
the eschatological level. From that time
onwards there is a succession of new generations of individuals in the immense
human family, in every-increasing dimensions; there is also a succession of new
generations of the people of God, marked with the sign of the Cross and of the
Resurrection and ‘sealed’ with the sign of the paschal mystery of Christ, the
absolute revelation of the mercy that Mary proclaimed on the threshold of her
kinswoman’s house: ‘His mercy is […]
from generation to generation’ […]. Mary, then, is the one who has the deepest
knowledge of the mystery of God’s mercy.
She knows its price, she knows how great it is. In this sense, we call her the Mother of
mercy: our Lady of mercy, or Mother of divine mercy; in each one of these
titles there is a deep theological meaning, for they express the special
preparation of her soul, of her whole personality, so that she was able to
perceive through the complex events, first of Israel, then of every individual
and of the whole of humanity, that mercy of which ‘from generation to
generation’ people become sharers according to the eternal design of the Most
Holy Trinity” (John Paul II, Dives in
misericordia, 9).
v.
51: “The proud”: those who want to be regarded as superior to others, whom they
look down on. This also refers to those
who, in their arrogance, seek to organize society without reference to, or in
opposition to, God’s law. Even if they seem
to do so successfully, the words of our Lady’s canticle will ultimately come
true, for God will scatter them as he did those who tried to build the tower of
Babel, thinking that they could reach as high as heaven (cf. Gen 11:4).
“When
pride takes hold of a soul, it is no surprise to find it bringing along with it
a whole string of other vices—greed, self-indulgence, envy, injustice. The
proud man is always vainly striving to dethrone God, who is merciful to all his
creatures, so as to make room for himself and his ever cruel ways.
“We
should beg God not to let us fall into this temptation. Pride is the worst sin of all, and the most
ridiculous…. Pride is unpleasant, even from a human point of view. The person who rates himself better than
everyone and everything is constantly studying himself and looking down on
other people, who in turn react by ridiculing his foolish vanity” (Bl. J.
Escriva, Friends of God, 100).
v.
53: This form of divine providence has been experienced countless times over
the course of history. For example, God nourished
the people of Israel with manna during their forty years in the wilderness (Ex
16:4-35); similarly his angel brought food to Elijah (1 Kings 19:5-8), and to
Daniel in the lions’ den (Dan 14:31-40); and the widow of Sarepta was given a
supply of oil which miraculously never ran out (1 Kings 17:8ff). So, too, the
Blessed Virgin’s yearning for holiness was fulfilled by the incarnation of the
Word.
God
nourished the chosen people with his Law and the preaching of his prophets, but
the rest of mankind was left hungry for his word, a hunger now satisfied by the
Incarnation. This gift of God will be accepted by the humble; the
self-sufficient, having no desire for the good things of God, will not partake
of them (cf. St. Basil, In Psalmos
homiliae, on Ps 33).
v.
54: God led the people of Israel as he would a child whom he loved tenderly:
“the Lord your God bore you, as a man bears his son, in all the way that you
went” (Deut 1:313). He did so many
times, using Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David etc., and now he gives them a
definitive leader by sending the Messiah—moved by his great mercy which takes
pity on the wretchedness of Israel and of all mankind.
v.
55: God promised the patriarchs of old that he would have mercy on mankind.
This promise he made to Adam (Gen 3:15), Abraham (Gen 22:18), David (2 Sam 7:12), etc. From all eternity God had planned and decreed
that the Word should become incarnate for the salvation of all mankind. As
Christ himself put it, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).
What more can we add to the above? There is so much in it to talk to God about
in our quiet moments with Him in prayer during the day throughout the
week. And since we are still in the
month of October let us take advantage to ask Our Mother Mary herself to
intercede for us that you and I may acquire the virtue of humility that merits
the favor of God’s love and mercy, gifts and the fruits of the Spirit among
which are joy, peace, love.
See you in
the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may
you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care;
‘til He brings us together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
Comments
Post a Comment