Posts Tagged: "Magnificat"

grace takes you somewhere unexpected

Advent Day 9: Grace Takes Us To Unexpected Places

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

*picture above: a statue of Mary in a church we visited this summer in Narni (an ancient hilltop village in the Umbrian region of Italy)

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and now generation after generation forever shall call me blessed of God. —Luke 1.46-48

Mary was waiting – she was engaged to be married. Her whole life and future family was ahead, but not quite yet. Maybe she was excited. Probably she was a little scared. And then an angel visits her and makes an announcement. She questions. She wonders. And then she says yes.

As this shocking news of a God-laid-out-plan for her life sinks in, Mary’s response is to sing. We call this the Magnificat (my soul magnifies) or Mary’s song.

Luke 1.48 records, “He took notice of his lowly servant girl.” Another translation says “He set his gaze upon me.”

There’s something encouraging here… a reminder that God sees, God notices, God pays attention. There are times when I feel invisible, insignificant, small, or lowly in the eyes of the popular or powerful—and yet, God takes notice. He sets his gaze upon me.

Ultimately, Mary responded to God’s invitation with an emphatic… Read More

the power of a blessing post

Advent Day 2: The Power of a Blessing

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

*photo above: Callicarpa shrub (Beautyberry) at the Lake Wilderness Arboretum

Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.” —Luke 1.42-45

In Jan Richardson’s introduction to her book Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, she writes…

I find myself compelled by the power of a blessing: how in the space of a few lines, the stuff of pain, grief, and death becomes the very substance of hope. I wanted not only to know more about that place; I wanted to live there. Blessings enable us to perceive the ways the sacred inhabits the ordinary, impressing upon us that every moment and each place lies within the circle of God’s care.

Blessings are often poetic, pulsing with the rhythms of invocation… and taking on the cadence of litany and liturgy. They use ordinary language in ways that can become extraordinary, offering words that arrest our attention and awaken us to how the holy is at work in our very midst.

A true blessing is meant also to provoke us, to incite us to a response. The best blessings awaken our imaginations.

The story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth… Read More