The Magnificat– a prayer of trust

magThe Magnificat

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.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever. 

(Lk 1:46-55)

At our school mass on the Feast of the Assumption, Deacon Kevin spoke of the words in this prayer. He challenged us to say these words and mean them.  What would the world look like if I do as Mary did and as she continues to do in miracles such as Fatima and Lourdes. Proclaiming God’s greatness is only possible if I truly believe, but more than that, it is only possible if I have true Faith.

Faith is so much more than belief however, because believing is a mere starting point on our journey towards Christ. We can proclaim, but when do we live it out fully?  What does it mean to rejoice in God? The prayer calls Him our “savior,” but what can that mean for us really?  To be saved means we must allow ourselves to be humbled and be rescued.  Nowhere in any of this fits our pride. We must succumb to God as a higher, more ethereal being who is capable of loving us beyond how we enable ourselves to be loved. We also must think more of ourselves in order to accept such love and rescuing. Our lives must maintain a fine balance between pride and humility and hope and despair.

I contend that we only fully live out our faith when we understand and redeem ourselves from the sin of Eve, just as the Blessed Mother did. Eve’s sin was only partially the sin of disobedience, though that is often the understanding we have of the Fall of Man. We understood God to be transcendent and lofty who, through His love, dictated what Adam and Eve were to do and how they were to conduct themselves. That always sounded reasonable to me. However, the more I thought, and the more I read, and the more I prayed, the more I discovered that Eve truly sinned when she failed to TRUST in the Lord. 

faithHow can our souls show the Lord in all His glory if we don’t trust him to love and care for us? I must have complete confidence in God and His ways so I can celebrate Him and his works, one of the “works” being ME. I NEED God like my body needs air. I have to trust that He is all around me though I cannot see him. This is why belief, faith, and trust are all interconnected. My trust lies also in knowing that no matter how desperate the world feels or how much we or others are suffering, we are capable of achieving Hid grace if we only place our confidence in Him and his claim that we are in a temporary state and that our real lives are of all eternity with Him.

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