The Magnificat

Many years ago I used to host a website called Trinitarian. One contributor was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, Fr. Paul Keenan. He passed away on June 10, 2008. He wrote the following article on December 29th, 2005. I thought it would be nice to publish it again. I'll search for other articles Fr. Paul wrote and will put them on my blog.   But here's one from December 2005.

Most of us don’t realize what a powerful thing the mind is.  When we use the word “mind,” we usually mean our thinking ability.  But, of course, another meaning of the word “mind” is “to pay attention to.”  How many times did our parents tell us, “Mind your manners”?  Or even worse, “You mind what I tell you!” 

The two meanings of the word “mind” are interrelated, and when we realize this, we discover one of the reasons that the mind is so powerful.  For when it comes right down to it, we get what we pay attention to.  I often think of a woman who lived next door to us when I was growing up.  She was a lovely person, but there was something about her that was always a little sad or melancholy.  One day, her husband had taken great care to hang some new curtains for her in their living room.  My mother went over to admire them, and when she saw them, exclaimed, “Oh, what beautiful curtains.”  To which the woman replied, “They’re a quarter of an inch too long.”

Looking back, it’s easy to see why there was always an edge of sadness in that woman’s life.  She always saw the quarter of an inch that was off.  As a result, she got more and more and more things to complain about.

Of course, there are things in life to complain about.  Nobody gets a life that is totally free from worry, stress, or things to be bothered about.  The question is, “Is that all you see?”  What we see multiplies, and all too often we focus on the quarter of an inch that’s off, and as a result we create our own unhappiness.

Faith means that even in the midst of adversity, we can choose to see something positive.  Now, I’m not talking here about positive-thinking tricks or affirmations or the like.  No, I’m talking about something much more radical, much more “hard-wired” into the core of our being.  Something that, if we pay attention to it, even in the tough times, will bring us an increasing sense of blessing.

In a beautiful scripture passage that has become the prayer known as “The Magnificat,” Mary the Mother of God uses the expression, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”  That’s an amazing statement when you stop to think about it, but it is rich in consequences for us.  When a soul magnifies God, it is not because God is small.  It is because we have focused so consistently on other things that God takes up, at most, a little corner of our awareness.  When a soul like Mary’s magnifies God for us, it puts God back where he ought to be in our awareness.  And, following the principle of mind that we described above, when God is big in our consciousness, we see more and more and more of him and the wonderful things he does for us. 

That’s why we begin the year and the month of January with the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God.  She who magnifies the Lord for us is put first on our calendar, first in our year.  By putting her first, we enable her to magnify our sense of God and his presence in our lives.  Doing that is much better than making a thousand “New Year’s Resolutions” which we will have broken within a month.  For if we have a powerful sense of God, we need not want for anything.  As Mary herself said, “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”  That is our sense of things when we have a strong sense of God. 

So as we start the New Year, let’s think of Mary.  Let’s allow her to magnify the Lord in us.  If we do so, we will, indeed have a Happy New Year.