Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: January 1, 2026

A wise old Benedictine priest once told me in spiritual direction years ago: “There will be days in you life as a priest when everything from the pressures of work, to tiredness, to depression, to distractions, to flat-out laziness, will make it difficult for you to pray. But no matter what, always try to pray at least one sincere, focused Our Father every day.”

Jesus gives us no more perfect prayer than the Our Father. And the priest was right, there are days when that’s the best I can do.

But there is another prayer found in Scripture, not nearly as known or practiced as the Our Father, that is also a significant prayer for me and many others.

It is the prayer placed on Mary’s lips today as she visits her cousin, Elizabeth. It is found in St. Luke’s Gospel, rooted in prayers of the Old Testament, particularly that of Hannah in the 1st Book of Samuel, and it is known as the Magnificat. Latin for Magnify, as in my soul magnifies the lord. . .

At today’s Mass and throughout Advent, we have been singing as our opening song the Canticle of the Turning. For the musically inclined or the very observant, you may have noticed the citation listed after the song that it is based on Mary’s prayer, the Magnificat.

But what do the words of this prayer mean?

They are words which thank and praise God for having taken the side of the poor, the humble, the hungry, and the oppressed in this world - having lifted them up and given them victory, even as God toppled the powerful off their thrones and humbled them.

However, Mary’s prayer puts this all into the past tense, as if it was already an accomplished fact, already a reality in our world.

But, as the cartoon character Ziggy once remind God in a prayer, “The poor are still getting clobbered down here!”

And for the large part, this seems to be so. Looking at our world, we see that the gap between rich and poor is widening, hundreds of millions of people go to bed hungry every night - corruption and crime are everywhere, and the powerful seemingly can simply take whatever they want without any repercussions.

We have nearly 100 million refuges on borders around the world, and women and children are still victims of violence and abuses of all kinds, everywhere.

Worse still, it would seem things are getting worse, not better. So where do we see that God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty??

We see it in the resurrection of Jesus and the vision of hope given to us in that reality. What Mary affirms in the Magnificat is a deep truth we can only grasp in the faith and hope of the resurrection:

That even though at the present, injustice, corruption, and exploitation of the poor seem to reign, there will be a last day when that oppressive stone will be rolled back from the tomb and the powerful will topple. The Magnificat is the ultimate prayer of hope, and the ultimate prayer for the poor.

Maybe it is my age, or maybe its the discouragement I feel most evenings if I dare to watch the news, or maybe it is both, but as I grow older, two prayers, outside of the Eucharist, are most dear to me: The Our Father, and the Magnificat, prayed every day at evening prayer in the liturgy of the hours.

Like my old Benedictine spiritual director, advised, I now make sure no day goes by where pressure, tiredness, distraction, or laziness keeps me from praying at least these two prayers to focus my attention.

That hasn’t always been the case. For many years, I looked at the Magnificat and saw only the exultation of the Mary of piety, all the litanies and praises of Mary rolled into one. Not that there is anything wrong with that since the Mary of piety is someone to whom millions of people, not least the poor turn to in need, seeking guidance, comfort and sympathy from the Mother of God and their mother.

Few would argue against the goodness of this since it shows a rich understanding of the poor, as well as the poor in spirit.

But, the Magnificat is NOT so much about Mary’s personal exultation as it is about the exultation of the poor. In this prayer, Mary gives voice to how God ultimately responds to the powerlessness an oppression of the poor.

As the Dutch Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen, once wrote that watching the evening news and seeing the suffering in our world can leave us feeling depressed and powerless.

Depressed because of the injustice – powerless because it seems that we can do nothing about it.

What can we do about it?? If nothing else, we can pray the Magnificat every day to give voice to how God ultimately responds to the powerlessness of the poor. And to capture a feeling of hope to know that one day, things can, and will be different.