by Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, o.m.i
A few months later we see Mary going through the countryside to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who had conceived a child in her old age. Mary was performing a personal loving service. This is still done in oriental families by the mother when a daughter conceives. She remained about three months with Elizabeth. Here she prays in the prophetic tradition. Her prayer is the Magnificat. My soul glorifies the Lord.
She announces the promises of God to her people. Perhaps we have got so accustomed to reciting it that we do not often think of the content of its message. In the context of the Old Testament prophecies she proclaims the liberative message of salvation promised by God to his people. She speaks of the deeds being realised by God. She mentions the type of impact God has on people. “The arrogant of heart and mind he has put to rout, he has torn imperial powers from their thrones. But the humble have been lifted high. The hungry he has satisfied with good things, the rich sent empty away.” (Luke 1.51-53)
We can see in this a three fold type of action, first in the sphere of mentalities, second of political structures and power, and third the distribution of economic goods. In modem technology one may say she proclaims a cultural revolution in which the proud-hearted and the haughty are got rid of in favour of the poor simple, lowly people; a political revolution by which the political power passes from the mighty to the masses of the people; and an economic revolution by which the hungry and the starving get the good things instead of their being monopolised by the rich who are sent away empty.
We see here a total reversal of values and structures. It is undoubtedly a radical message of the type which one can read in the writings of the revolutionary prophets of the different ages. The pity however, is that the Christian tradition has succeeded in domesticating Mary so much that she is known rather as the comforter of the disturbed, than as a disturber of the comfortable. Her words can be the inspiration for radical action for change of mentalities of persons and structures of societies. The Christian tradition has unfortunately generally assigned to Mary a domesticated and a domesticating role. On the contrary the Magnificat shows how she reconciles social radicality with personal service, a revolutionary message with interpersonal love. This is a powerful and pleasing combination of practical action, deep reflective prayer and personal concern.
Fortunately modern theology, specially liberation theology sees in the Magnificat a spiritual support for the struggles of the poor and the oppressed for freedom and justice. This places Mary on the side of the needy, the weak and the exploited. It has been a great inspiration to the Christian movements for social transformation throughout the world.
Update: The Magnificat was banned by the government of El Salvador during the time of the martyrdom of Bishop Oscar Romero
See Robert McAfee Brown's introduction to liberation theology, in which he relates the fascinating account of a base Christian community in Brazil discovering the "real Mary" of the Magnificat who belongs to the poor (Theology in a New Key [Philadelphia Westminister Press, 1978], 97-100). Liberation theology emerged out of the struggle for justice in less developed lands throughout the world. It attempts to read the Bible through the eyes of the poor and their social and economic oppression. The Magnificat was banned by the government of El Salvador during the time of the martyrdom of Bishop Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980, in the very act of speaking the words of institution, while celebrating a memorial mass on Easter eve. Much earlier, the Reformer Martin Luther preached a powerful sermon on the Magnificat in which he, too, grasped its potentially subversive impact upon just rulers and princes. See Luther's Works, vol 21, The Sermon on the Mount and the Magnificat, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan ( St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), 343-44.
From Uneasy Neighbors: Church and State in the New Testament by Walter E. Pilgrem
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