Luke 1:46-55 Advent Devotional

Advent Devotional for Monday, December 22, 2008

Week 4: PEACE

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Luke 1:46-55

Mary’s Magnificat says so much. I’d like to ask you to read it again (and maybe even three times): certainly one reading is insufficient. Even after half a dozen readings, I find it difficult to move past the wondrous opening line: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” What more do we need, especially at this hopeful time, than to allow our souls to do that for which they were made?

Mary’s prayer reminds me of the great (and difficult) Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.” Hopkins was a 19th-century English Jesuit and is a favorite poet of mine. In this sonnet Hopkins develops a theme similar to that of Mary’s prayer. Here it is:

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

My prayer today is that we can hear and follow Mary’s magnificent lead. Let our souls proclaim God’s greatness in everything that we do today. And let us, as Hopkins suggests, see Christ in “ten thousand places.”


By Adam Musser, Theology Teacher/Campus Ministry