“Magnifying Glass”

In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

For almost two years, I have been the proud possessor of an iPhone.

Now I know that iPhone owners can be unbearably smug. After all, we didn’t invent the phone, so we can hardly brag about it. Since there are now millions of iPhone users, we are not exactly an elite group.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of clever features in the phone. For example, if you are reading something and the text is so small that you can’t make out a word, you can put your fingers on the word and it appears in a little circle that’s like a magnifying glass!

I thought of that feature when I first started thinking about the Gospel for today, which includes the famous Song of Mary. This canticle is known by the first word of its Latin translation, “magnificat;” a familiar English translation of the first line reads, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior.”

A less poetic, modern translation reads, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” In other words, Mary is speaking of her happiness that God has chosen her to bear the Messiah.

Her feeling of being “magnified” within herself is like the emotion of a coach when her team scores a winning goal against a much better opponent. The coach feels a warmth in her heart that expands to fill her whole being.

Mary also feels pride. This pride, however, isn’t purely the result of something she has done herself. Rather, Mary’s amazing elevation from “handmaid of the Lord” to mother of the long-awaited Christ shows what God has done in her life. She knows that the “magnification” of her emotions is spiritual.

And the lesson of Mary’s Song extends well beyond her unique situation as mother of the long-awaited Messiah. For Mary has been given a lesson about how God works.

First, Mary has seen a larger picture. According to her new vision, the “humble” people of the world are empowered by God and equipped for a new role of service. They are destined to replace the “mighty” who have in turn been “put down from their seats.”

Admittedly, this divine action remains largely a vision of what will happen in the future; the Kingdom of God has not yet arrived, so the rich and the mighty remain in power.

By the same token, Mary’s magnified vision doesn’t rule out the possibility that some of the mighty are kind and generous; they may even be what we call “socially conscious.”

Whatever the individual virtue or lack of virtue of a particular person, the perennial message of the Song of Mary in every society and every age is that the world’s power is not final.

The humble and meek possess a hidden spiritual force. That force insures the ultimate triumph of God. Mary’s vision extends the divine power beyond the perils to human life; there are no limits to God’s grace at work in our world.

And there is a second message in the Song of Mary. This message comes from the opposite direction. It’s not about outward, global politics, but about the inward, individual self.

For it is the soul that magnifies the Lord. The canticle suggests that God gives to each of us a solid, unassailable spiritual center.

 No opponent can penetrate our inner selves. It is the source of real serenity—what St. Paul calls, “the peace of God that passes all understanding.”

To think about this idea a bit further--although this is sheer speculation on my part—the canticle may explain why St. Mary appears as she does in many religious paintings and statues.

Whoever the artists were who created the painting or sculpture, the portraits almost always portray Mary’s face as having a supernatural peacefulness. (Our own mural by the great American artist John LaFarge illustrates this quality.)

Mary’s exterior calm reveals her interior strength. The mighty can’t get to her. Her peace comes from beyond this world.

No wonder that countless Christians have thought of the Mother of Jesus when they have had problems in their own souls. Mary was the human being who was closest person to Christ on earth.

And, not surprisingly, Christians have found that she is able even now to share her closeness. All Christians, not just Christians in traditions that have prominent statues and icons of Mary--all of us can approach Mary spiritually. Her example reminds us that we too have a spiritual center that God gave us and that God sustains and nourishes, whatever happens in the world around us. Mary helps us to build on the spiritual strength that God has already placed in our souls.

So, when we rejoice in God our Savior, as Mary rejoiced in anticipation of the birth of Christ—we acquire a new resistance to the threats that come our way.

Take, for instance, the disappointments that can overshadow our celebrations of holidays like Christmas and New Year’s. You may go to some party and find that it isn’t nearly as much fun as you expected. You may plan to see friends only to learn that they have decided to visit someone else. Bad weather may force you to cancel your own plans.

In a time of high expectation, such disappointments can seem even worse. But if you follow St. Mary’s example and you reach down into your soul, you find a power to balance the sadness-- an inner confidence that you didn’t know you possessed.

The iPhone, like other smart phones connects to a global positioning system that allows you to see where you are on a map. You can also use the connection to find a restaurant that you’re looking for or to locate friends who happen to be nearby.

Again, by analogy, when you let God into your soul, as Mary did, you find yourself on a spiritual map. Your spirit is linked to God’s Spirit. Your soul finds its true center in God and magnifies God’s presence and proclaims God’s greatness.

Amen.