The artist Ben Wildflower's depiction of Mary, based on the Magnificat. (Ben Wildflower)
THIS is an article from Dezember 2018 but it deserves to be brought to our attention again if for no other reason than to celebrate Mary's faith as well as the faith of countless women of the Church, past and present, who have kept the Church alive and vital through good times and bad. After the article find the words of the Magnificat in English and Latin and two videos of the singing oof the Magnificat, one of the traditional Latin and one one in Latin by the Netherlands Bach Society. From the Washington Post.....
Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ in the Bible is revolutionary. Some evangelicals silence her.
Much later in life, I was shocked to discover that Mary wasn’t quiet, nor was she what I would call meek and mild.
Go read the first chapter of Luke. Read the song, called the “Magnificat,” that Mary sings.
The first verses were always familiar to me: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” Same for the next few lines about Mary being overwhelmed at the goodness of God looking upon a humble girl, that God is mighty and has done great things, that he is holy and will bless those who fear him. But then comes this:
“He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.”
In all my long years of being in church, of knowing the Christmas story backward and forward, I never heard these verses emphasized. Here, Mary comes across less like a scared and obedient 15-year-old and more like a rebel intent on reorienting unjust systems.
I loved this Mary. Where had she been all my life?
Throughout history, I would learn, poor and oppressed people had often identified with this song — the longest set of words spoken by a woman in the New Testament (and a poor, young, unmarried pregnant woman at that!).
Oscar Romero, priest and martyr, drew a comparison between Mary and the poor and powerless people in his own community. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazis, called the Magnificat “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung.”
Revolutionaries, the poor and the oppressed, all loved Mary and they emphasized her glorious song. But the Magnificat has been viewed as dangerous by people in power. Some countries — such as India, Guatemala, and Argentina — have outright banned the Magnificat from being recited in liturgy or in public.
And evangelicals — in particular, white evangelicals — have devalued the role of Mary, and her song, to the point that she has almost been forgotten as anything other than a silent figure in a nativity scene.
I asked evangelical Christians on Twitter about the passage, and more than 1,100 responded: 28 percent said they had never heard the title “Magnificat” (Latin for “magnify”); another 43 percent said their churches never read or discussed it; 21 percent said they had encountered it just a few times; and 8 percent said they read it every year.
Almost all of the popular evangelical songs that incorporate the Magnificat stop after the first few verses. According to Spotify, this version by ZOEgroup is the most popular English-language version of the Magnificat; it leaves out the parts about the rulers being brought down and the rich being sent away.
However, some pastors are trying to bring Mary’s song back into church. Brian Thomas, a former Southern Baptist pastor, said he left his denomination after learning how Protestantism, and evangelicalism in particular, dismissed certain parts of the Bible — including the importance of Mary.
Thomas Irby preached on the Magnificat last year as a response to the #MeToo movement. He spoke of Mary’s physical vulnerability and her courage to share her own story. “Preachers have too often settled for a pliable passage about a devoted woman and the mighty God she serves,” said Irby, an associate pastor at Ashland Place United Methodist Church in Mobile, Ala., which has gained notability as the congregation of former attorney general Jeff Sessions. Irby said he is planning on preaching the Magnificat again this year.
The artist Ben Wildflower grew up evangelical, reading the Bible over and over. Yet he never heard the song of Mary emphasized in church until he started attending an Anglican congregation. There, the Magnificat was a part of the evening prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, and Wildflower found it beautiful and profound. One day he picked up a piece of wood outside of a construction site and crafted an image of Mary that was different from all the sweet pictures of her staring up into heaven. He drew her with her fist raised to the sky, and her foot stepping on a snake. It is now his most popular image.
“She’s a young woman singing a song about toppling rulers from their thrones. She’s a radical who exists within the confines of institutionalized religion,” he said. Some Christians took issue with the political nature of his image, until Wildflower wrote a post explaining the revolutionary text came from the Bible.
Why has this song been forgotten, or trimmed, for so many people who grew up evangelical? It could be a byproduct of the Reformation, which caused Protestants to devalue Mary in reaction to Catholic theology. Or a lack of familiarity with liturgy, and an emphasis on other texts. Or perhaps the song doesn’t sound like good news if you are well fed, or rich, or in a position of power and might — or if you benefit from systems that oppress. How does the Magnificat feel if you aren’t one of the lowly, if you aren’t as vulnerable and humble as Mary?
Theologian Warren Carter writes that in the time of Jesus, 2 to 3 percent of the population was rich, while the majority lived a subsistence-level existence. “Mary articulates an end to economic structures that are exploitative and unjust. She speaks of a time when all will enjoy the good things given by God.”
This year, I will be reading the Magnificat as it was meant to be read. As Gustavo Gutierrez, a Dominican priest, once wrote, we will miss the meaning of the text with any “attempts to tone down what Mary’s song tells us about the preferential love of God for the lowly and the abused."
It might not feel like good news to me, exactly, as someone who is neither hungry nor poor. But Mary and her song are good news for my neighbors, both locally and globally, who continue to be crushed under a world that thrives on exploitation and injustice. And as someone who is trying to take the Bible seriously, I know that loving my neighbor is the No. 1 way I can love God in our world.
Mary, no longer just a silent member of the nativity, or a holy womb for God, or an obedient and compliant girl, has become the focal point for how I, and many other Christians, celebrate Christmas while living in the reality of waiting for true justice to come. She has helped me understand the true magnificence of how much God cares about our political, economic and social realities.
The economic and political worldview of many white evangelicals has led to a silencing of Mary and of God’s dream for the world. But now she is helping me trust that the eventual upending of the systems of the world will be good news for me, and for other evangelicals, as well.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a pastor at Ashland Place United Methodist Church. He is Thomas Irby.
Luke 1:46-55English Standard Version
Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat
46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Luke 1:46-55
Latin Version
Mariae Canticum Laudis: Magnificat
46 Dixit autem Maria:
"Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
47 et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.
48 vidit enim humilitatem servi sui.
Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes;
49 fecit mihi magna qui potens est
et sanctum nomen eius.
50 et misericordia eius a progenie in progenies timentibus eum
in generationem et generationem.
51 Fecit potentiam in brachio suo;
dispersit superbos mentes cordis sui;
52 deposuit potentes de sede
et humiles exaltavit eos;
53 Esurientes implevit bonis;
et divites dimisit inanes.
54 Suscepit Israel puerum suum.
in recordationem misericordiae suae;
55 sicut locutus est ad patres nostros
Abraham et semini eius in saecula ».
Magnificat gregoriano
The Magnificat, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach, is the first large choral work that Bach composed after his appointment in Leipzig in the spring of 1723. It is an ‘old-fashioned’ but delightful five-voiced work that uses Latin, just like the other rarity among Bach’s works, the Mass in B minor. Recorded for the project All of Bach on May 2nd 2014 at the Grote Kerk, Naarden. If you want to help us complete All of Bach, please subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/2vhCeFB or consider donating http://bit.ly/2uZuMj5.
Netherlands Bach Society Jos van Veldhoven, conductor Julia Doyle, soprano 1 Hana Blažíková, soprano 2 Maarten Engeltjes, alto Thomas Hobbs, tenor Christian Immler, bass 0:00 Magnificat (Coro) 3:05 Et Exsultavit (Aria) 5:28 Quia Respexit (Aria) 8:12 Omnes (Coro) 9:36 Quia Fecit (Aria) 11:49 Et misericordia (Duetto) 15:28 Fecit Potentiam (Coro) 17:25 Deposuit (Aria) 19:34 Esurientes (Aria) 22:26 Suscepit Israel (Terzetto) 24:30 Sicut Locutus Est (Coro) 26:14 Gloria Patri (Coro)
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