Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Luke (1: 46-56) in which Mary gives praise to God saying, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”.

Fr Paul says Mary’s Magnificat, as it is known, sums up the themes of the gospel.

On the one hand it is full of gratitude and praise to the God of mercy. This had been revealed on Sinai as the meaning of the sacred name of God when God passed before Moses crying, ‘The Lord, the Lord, God of mercy and compassion, rich in kindness and faithfulness’ (Exodus 34.6), a name which echoes countless times through the scriptures. And yet at the same time the song is full of tender reverence for the holiness of God, taking its tone also from Isaiah’s vision of the Lord in the Temple, when the Temple is filled with his glory and Isaiah can feel only his own unworthiness (Isaiah 6). God is so close and yet so distant.

On the other hand, Mary’s song is suggestive of God’s special love for the hungry and the powerless. This is apparent in all the Gospels, but especially in Luke, who is writing to remind a richer audience of their obligations. He stresses the poverty of the surroundings of Jesus’ birth, of the shepherds who first come to reverence him, the baby’s own refugee status.

His beatitudes focus not (as in Matthew’s) on Christian attitudes and motivations, but on the grinding poverty of those who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. He remains constantly aware of the dangers of wealth (parables of the Rich Fool, or the Rich Man and Lazarus) and the reversal of standards in God’s evaluations.

Finally, Luke carefully reminds us that the those who receive the message in these Infancy Stories, are the faithful in Israel, according to his mercy ‘to Abraham and his descendants for ever.’

The Almighty has done great things for Mary, as Christmas approaches, Fr Paul invites us to remember that the Almighty has done great things for us by sending his only son.