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“Mary
said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath
rejoiced in God my Savior. Because He hath regarded
the humility of His handmaid; for behold from henceforth
all generations shall call me blessed. Because He
that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and Holy is
his Name. And His mercy is from generation unto generations,
to them that fear Him. He hath shewed might in His arm:
He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted
the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath received Israel
his servant, being mindful of His mercy: As He spoke to
our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
”
(St.
Luke 1.46)
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“He
has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He
hath put down the mighty from their seat,
and
hath exalted the humbled.”
He
had said it ... so many, many times – and we would not listen.
We
had seen it, and still did not believe.
The
mighty toppled, the Cedars of Lebanon broken as withered reeds,
the proud brought down in their arrogance ... and, yes, the humbled
raised up to take the emptied thrones of fallen kings.
One saw ... and understood.
And even when she did not see, and did not understand ... she believed!
So
God set her above all men, all women, all the sons and daughters
of Eve ... from Abraham who would immolate all hope on the sad heights
of Moriah, to John who stirred in joy at her very voice in the womb
of Elizabeth her kin.
Her
“Yes”
still resounds through the corridors of time, lingers in soaring,
endless spires, in thatched hopes built anew a hundred times on
searing plains, in the slums and barrios where stifled voices know
the dialect of the Queen of the Poor.
It is a song which sings that the raiment of the poor is not shame
... for, behold, it was lowliness that mantled her in beauty, and
covered her with grace!
In
her humility, her lowliness, Mary toppled the world of the arrogant,
and she topples it still! ... sets the heel of her Son against
that Dreamless Malice who would make of her children a kingdom of
the dead while yet they live ... that they may die twice! Mary,
Mother of Life, and the living, will not suffer them death!
Gentle
Mother, she is the River of Life whose supple waters — most yielding
of all things — overcome even stone, the most unyielding of things
— making of mountains mere walls through which her grace, poured
out on her children, courses to the endless sea of God's love.
The
hardest of hearts subdued by the gentlest of hearts!
How can this be? Tell
us, Mary ... Mother of God, and Queen of the Poor?
“Because
He that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and Holy is His
Name.”
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