Mary has just told the angel Gabriel that she is willing to become the mother of Jesus and has gone to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist. Mary's response is the prayer called "The Magnificat."
Elizabeth was praising Mary for saying "yes" to the angel and Mary knows that she has been chosen for a very important mission and feels her own unworthiness.
Do we ever think about the fact that we are also chosen, though unworthy, to do God's work?
If we are made in God's image, and have received the Holy Spirit in Baptism, then we too are called to "magnify" the Lord in our daily lives. We too are blessed by God.
God has done great things for us in giving us the gift of faith. This gift allows us to be adopted children of the one God, heirs to the Kingdom earned for us by Jesus.
We too should be grateful for all that God has done for us and praise God who is holy just as Mary does in this passage from Luke.
During this season of Advent, we should also thank Mary for agreeing to be the mother of our Savior. Have you ever considered what would have happened if she had said "no?"
My imagination sometimes goes off on those tangents. I have often wondered if Abraham had been the first person that God approached. And I have wondered the same about Mary.
The same applies to us. Why do we have the gift of faith, and not others?
As for me, I am grateful to God and I feel very blessed that I have a faith that gets me through the highs and lows of life with a promise of eternal life when this one on earth ends.
