SAINT MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS
The
Bible is the scriptures of Christianity, a collection of books believed to be
directly inspired by the spirit of God. Most of the books, for example, the
Pentateuch, and the historical, prophetic, and wisdom books derive from the
scriptures of Judaism. Insofar as the books of the Bible constitute the foundation of two major religions, Judaism and Christianity, this collection of books is exceptionally influential in the world.
The total combined population of Christianity and Judaism is 2.32 billion, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study. Christians comprise 31.2% of the world population, Jews 0.01%. See:
The total combined population of Christianity and Judaism is 2.32 billion, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study. Christians comprise 31.2% of the world population, Jews 0.01%. See:
—Conrad Hackett and David McClendon, “Christians remain world’s largest religious group, but they are declining in Europe,” April 5, 2017, Pew Research Center
—Victor Kiprop, “Best-selling book of non-fiction,” May 25, 2018, Guinness World Records
The influence of the Bible is not only extensive but also intensive because it speaks to the spirituality of billions.
About one-third of the Bible has been estimated to consist of poetry. See:
About one-third of the Bible has been estimated to consist of poetry. See:
—John Piper, “God Filled Your Bible with Poems,” April 16, 2016, desiringGod.org
Biblical
poetry has been extolled for its specifically literary value. See, for example, the
following:
—Dr. Jennifer T. Parkhurst, “The Conventions of Biblical Poetry,” myjewishlearning.com
Did Mary, the mother of Jesus, really compose the Magnificat?
Scholars
say that Saint Luke the Evangelist was a second-generation Christian disciple
working from first-generation sources and traditions, especially the gospel of
Saint Mark and a collection of written and oral traditions known as “Q” for “Quelle.”
Saint Luke’s gospels differ from those of the two other synoptic gospels, St.
Mark’s and St. Matthew’s, in several important respects, for example:
“Luke’s
unique perspective on Jesus can be seen in the six miracles and eighteen
parables not found in the other gospels. Luke’s is the gospel of the poor and
of social justice. He is the one who tells the story of Lazarus and the Rich
Man who ignored him. Luke is the one who uses ‘Blessed are the poor’ instead of
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ in the beatitudes. Only in Luke’s gospel do we
hear Mary’s Magnificat where she proclaims that God ‘has brought down the
powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry
with good things, and sent the rich away empty’ (Luke 1:52-53).
“Luke
also has a special connection with the women in Jesus’ life, especially Mary.
It is only in Luke’s gospel that we hear the story of the Annunciation, Mary’s
visit to Elizabeth including the Magnificat, the Presentation, and the story of
Jesus’ disappearance in Jerusalem. It is Luke that we have to thank for the
Scriptural parts of the Hail Mary: ‘Hail Mary full of grace’ spoken at the Annunciation
and ‘Blessed are you and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus’ spoken by her
cousin Elizabeth.
“Forgiveness
and God’s mercy to sinners is also of first importance to Luke. Only in Luke do
we hear the story of the Prodigal Son welcomed back by the overjoyed father.
Only in Luke do we hear the story of the forgiven woman disrupting the feast by
washing Jesus’ feet with her tears. Throughout Luke’s gospel, Jesus takes the
side of the sinner who wants to return to God’s mercy.
“Reading
Luke’s gospel gives a good idea of his character as one who loved the poor, who
wanted the door to God’s kingdom opened to all, who respected women, and who
saw hope in God’s mercy for everyone.”
—“St.
Luke,” Catholic Online
See also Christ’s Ambassadors for Nepal, which
offers a longer discussion:
It
has been suggested, plausibly, that Saint Luke obtained the perspectives of
Mary and Elizabeth which we uniquely discover in his gospel by interviewing
them directly. It is for this reason, credible enough, that we may attribute
the Magnificat to Mary as the primary
source. The Magnificat’s similarity
to the prayer of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10) and various passages from Jewish scriptures,
notably the psalms, indicate that Mary was familiar with Jewish scriptures to
the point that she had integrated them into her spirituality rather than that
Saint Luke had put together his own patchwork of exalted scriptural
verses.
A
masterpiece of Jewish and Christian prayer, the Magnificat is an outstanding work of theology. A great deal can be
said about it as a result. My personal commentary, on the other hand, is short.
Below
is the New American Bible translation (Luke 1:46-55).
My soul
proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has
looked with favor on his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages
call me blessed.
The Mighty
One has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
His mercy is
from age to age to those who fear him.
He has shown might
with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.
He has thrown
down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he
has filled the hungry with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped
Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our
fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
We
might describe the Magnificat as a “canticle
of contradiction.” The spirit of the world, which esteems power, wealth, all
sorts of display, is contradicted by the Spirit of God, who exalts lowliness
and stoops to fill the needs of humanity even to the point of overflowing (see 1 Corinthians 2:12).
The
motif of contradiction is well put according to Saint Paul:
The
foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is
stronger than human strength. …God chose the foolish of the world to shame the
wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose
the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to
nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.
(1 Corinthians 1:25, 27-29)
Isaiah
declares the same message as Saint Paul’s, God’s wisdom rises beyond human understanding:
My thoughts
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the Lord.
As high as
the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my
thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Contradicting
the spirit of the world is a motif that runs throughout the Bible. In
Deuteronomy, for example, God declares that Israel is his chosen people precisely
because of their smallness, their weakness.
You
are a people holy to the Lord, your God; the Lord, your God, has chosen you
from all the peoples on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his
own. It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the Lord set
his heart on you and chose you; for you are really the smallest of all nations.
It was because the Lord loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he
had sworn to your ancestors, that the Lord brought you out with his strong hand
and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of
Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:6-8)
The bows of
the mighty are broken, while the tottering girds on strength. (1 Samuel 2:4)
In
Isaiah, the prophet invites the thirsty and the hungry to fill themselves with
God’s largesse:
All you who
are thirsty—come to the water!
You who have
no money, come, receive grain and eat;
Come, without
paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!
Why spend
your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and
you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me
heedfully—listen, that you may have life.
I will renew
with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David. (Isaiah 55:1-3)
The
same motif of God feeding the hungry occurs in Hannah’s canticle:
The well-fed
hire themselves out for bread, while the hungry batten on spoil. (1 Samuel 2:5)
Exaltation
of the lowly by God, God’s deliverance of the needy—both are Biblical motifs.
High above
all nations is the Lord; above the heavens is his glory.
Who is like
the Lord our God, enthroned on high, looking down on heaven and earth?
He lifts up
the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he raises up the poor, to seat them
with princes, the princes of his own people.
He gives the
childless wife a home as the joyful mother of children. (Psalm 113:4-9)
The barren
wife bears seven sons, while the mother of many languishes.
The Lord
makes poor and makes rich; he humbles, he also exalts.
He raises the
needy from the dust; from the ash heap lifts up the poor, to seat them with
nobles and make a glorious throne their heritage. (1 Samuel 2:5, 7-8)
God
favors the lowly, the weak, the needy, and the poor—it is a message consistent throughout
the Bible that the Magnificat
recapitulates.
Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J. offers us a perspective on the Magnificat—indeed, on Mary herself—that invokes liberation theology and feminism. It is an ideological, in the political sense of the word, perspective, inciting thoughtful reflection, unsettling the status quo. It is intentionally subversive and characteristically postmodern.
Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J. offers us a perspective on the Magnificat—indeed, on Mary herself—that invokes liberation theology and feminism. It is an ideological, in the political sense of the word, perspective, inciting thoughtful reflection, unsettling the status quo. It is intentionally subversive and characteristically postmodern.
The
following passage, for example, is written from the standpoint of liberation
theology:
“The
Magnificat gives us an image of Mary speaking with prophetic authority a
liberating hymn of praise. Regarding this canticle, [Martin] Luther observed: ‘She
sang it not for herself alone but for all of us, to sing it after her.’ Doing
so places us in intense relationship to the God who regards suffering with
utmost mercy and summons us into the struggle to build a just world.”
With
respect to the excerpt below we take note of the feminist spin:
“Applied
to women’s struggle for full participation in governance and ministry in the
church, the reversals of the Magnificat become rife with significance. Mary’s
prophetic speech characterizes as nothing less than mercy—God’s intervention
into a patriarchal social order.”
(I
revised the original punctuation.)
—“Mary,
Mary, Quite Contrary,” U.S. Catholic,
Vol. 68, No. 12 (December 2003), page 12
A
last attribute of the Magnificat that I would like to highlight is its
prophetic character, meaning, it foretells the future. Among the most
remarkable prophecies of the prayer is Mary’s exclamation, “From now on will
all ages call me blessed.”
The
first part of the Hail Mary, which calls Mary blessed, according to the
greeting of the angel Gabriel, appears in Christian liturgy as early as the
sixth century C.E. The second part originates at the beginning of the High
Middle Ages, around 1,000 C.E.
The
Hail Mary is an essential part of the Angelus and the Rosary, two
commonly recited Roman Catholic prayers, which attained their present form during
the High Middle Ages and the Late, respectively.
Popular
legend says that the Blessed Virgin Mary bestowed the Rosary to Saint Dominic
de Guzman in a vision.
The
Angelus and the Rosary venerate Mary with the title, “blessed.” She has been so
celebrated for many centuries. Yes, the prophecy has come true.
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| The Annunciation (1898) by Henry Ossawa Tanner |
Image courtesy of Emily
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