Mary was full of joy as she trod the long and winding road towards the hill country of Judea where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived. Mary expressed her joy over her cousin’s blessing. So did Elizabeth share in Mary’s jubilation because God found favor in someone from their family to carry the Son of God in her womb.
When our happiness is so strong and overpowering, our eyes twinkle like they never did before. Our face radiates the completeness that our soul enjoys. It is as if the day were ours, the sun shone only for us, the wind blew fresh for our sake. We get to sing our heart out, albeit our tongue may not distinguish a do from a re.
Mary must have been bursting with such joy as she proclaimed to Elizabeth the good things God had done to her. She was ecstatic but never proud. She knew how lowly a person she was, and yet God favored her among the daughters of the earth. Her heart could not contain all the happiness that God poured into her being. This she wanted to share with humanity. This she wanted to shout to the world: “God, who is mighty, has done great things for me, holy is his name!” She sang her heart out. “My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit finds joy in God my savior.”
Mary’s song was a recognition of the divine work in her humanness. She felt she did not deserve the way God was treating her, the way God was so close to her. God was with her!
Mary reminds us that God has done many good things for us, too. Many times, we immediately see God’s hand working for us. At other times, he works without our awareness, and we fail to recognize his movements about us, which accrue to our benefit. Sometimes, we mistake these movements as originating from our own strength. Not so. The truth is, everything is grace. Every good thing that we experience issues from the wellsprings of God’s goodness. We cannot claim possession over any one good thing that we enjoy. If we are healthy, if we are able to work, if we have claim to some remuneration, if we are able to buy things, if we have possessions, that is because God is good. He gives us the will and the strength to be how we want to be. He gives us the will and strength to achieve our goals. We are by God’s providence.
The heart of Mary was wrapped with thankfulness because of the goodness of the Lord. She gives us herself as our model. She teaches and inspires us to constantly remember our nothingness in our aloneness, and our fullness with the graciousness of God. Mary always approached God with a grateful heart. She fully knew that to God alone belongs our thanksgiving, for he alone has the power to accomplish things. Mary said: “He confuses the proud in their inmost thoughts. He deposes the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly to high places. To the hungry he gives every good thing, while the rich he sends away empty.” He does great things to every one of us. For this, we might also come forward and acknowledge the goodness of God, singing: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”
But there is more to Mary’s song that just thanksgiving. It tells us about what God had done for us and what he continues to do. It is very clear that God wants change. In fact, He sent Jesus His only Son to restore all things to himself. God wants change in the moral sphere. “He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.” For moral change to take place, every person who bears the name Christian must put on the humility of Christ. Humility and arrogance mutually exclude each other. God wants change in the social sphere. “He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly.” For social change to come about, we should remind ourselves or perhaps even drill into our consciousness that all are equal before God. People in office, those in positions of power, should regard their work as a way to serve and not as an occasion to be served. God wants change in the economic sphere. “The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.” For economic change to happen, we start getting up from the “giving side” and not from the “taking side” of the bed each day. We are not here in the world to get as much or as many as we can. “All is vanity,” says Quoheleth. But if we do acquire, it is because we want to have something to share.
May we, like Mary, actively proclaim the goodness of God and demonstrate our gratefulness by being at the service of God’s strong desire for change. Our move, our action may not be that radical. But little by little, in our own little way, may we bring about moral change, social change and economic change in the world starting in ourselves, thus claiming Mary’s song our own.
14 years ago
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