What a wonderful prayer! The words, uttered by a most humble and honored Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Christ and our Mother, simply drip with the highest aspirations and noblest sentiments any human being can and should have.
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant," responded Mary when her cousin Elizabeth paid her the highest tribute: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
It's one of the happiest occasions in the Christian world when two most divinely blessed women met, one visiting the other. They could not help but glow in the splendor of the tremendous favor given them, one bearing the very son of God, our Redeemer, and the other carrying the very precursor who was going to point out to the people the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.
It's a scene worth engraving in our consciousness all the time, for what it expresses is what is actually proper of all of us to have. What those women felt should also be what we should feel all the time.
Yes, we have every reason to feel intense joy and thanksgiving and to feel blessed, regardless of whatever, because the Son of God, the very pattern of our humanity, has himself become man to bring us back to where we all come from and to whom we belong. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, good or bad, happy or sad, should always be infused by the spirit of the Magnificat.
We should repeat the words of the Magnificat daily, and, in fact, often during the day. We should repeat them from the heart, especially when we encounter difficulties and failures in life, because they remind us that God never fails to bless us. Yes, we should always feel blessed even amidst our problems and mistakes.
Feeling blessed is important and indispensable to us. Without it, we would be putting ourselves in great danger as we would simply stand on an unstable ground, totally dependent on the shifting world of chance, luck and fortune.
When these latter mundane and temporal values are missing, we cannot help but feel doomed, our life losing meaning and purpose, and our activities would simply become means to pass the time. Nothing more and beyond!
To be able to assume the spirit of the Magnificat, we should try our best to adapt the attitude of Mary. She was most humble and most docile. She asked for a clarification when she was told she was going to become the Mother of the Son of God, but it was not out of doubt and lack of faith. It was simply to make her cooperation with God's will and ways most complete.
When it was told to her how the incarnation of the Son of God in her womb would be, she simply said, "Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, be it done to me, according to your word." And God became man, "Et verbum caro factum est."
Let us hope that even and especially in the middle of our worldly affairs, when we also need to be immersed in them, tackling all the technicalities that they can involve, we can manage to remember the Magnificat that, to Mary, was the result of her being chosen the Mother of God and the tremendous weapon she used to actively participate in the redemptive work of her Son.
To us, the Magnificat should be the pledge that God loves and blesses us, no matter how undeserving we are, as well as the means to face all the vagaries of life, praising God, thanking him, asking for pardon and favors with confidence.
The Magnificat should remind us that even in our worst predicaments, God is always around and Mary is showing us how we can be united or reunited with her Son. She would infuse confidence into our heart especially at a time when we would be most vulnerable to lose that confidence and opt to become a fugitive from God.
The Magnificat is like a most precious and useful family treasure in a Christian's life. It's not meant to be kept in some secret vault. It has to be used frequently, for it has tremendous power to bring us back to vibrant Christian life if we have slackened or to keep the fire of love burning, full of action and not just of desires.
Like Mary who quickly visited her cousin to help, we too can quickly involve ourselves in the lives of others.