MARY, OUR MOTHER

Meditation 36

THE MAGNIFICAT

1. He has done Valiantly with the Strength of His Arm.

Here Our Blessed Lady is extolling the power of God as shown forth especially in certain of His works. All His works are the fruit of His infinite power. But of them this omnipotence shines forth more clearly in some than in others.

Mary would look up to the boundless Heavens, would watch the countless stars, so shining, so incalculable, so lively and swift in the midst of the harmony of Creation. How the starry sky reflects as in a mirror the omnipotence of God. And what about the earth, with its plants and animals, with its valleys and hills, its seas and rivers?

All these works of God would pass before Her mind and She would ask herself: is not this an achievement of the mighty Arm of God? Who but He could have conceived and achieved the like?

She would look at humanity, at the angels. She would contemplate the shining splendor of the heavenly court surrounding the throne of God; She would especially look at Her own soul. Where could She see better the strength of the Mighty Arm of God than in the work achieved in Her own heart, in Her own most pure soul?

Ponder over what all this means. God created all these wonders, as it were, without any effort, by just a mere word, by a mere wish. But to accomplish the work of the Incarnation God had, so to say, to display all His omnipotence and to exert, as it were, all His power.

When creating the world He met no resistance for all came from nothingness. The greater the resistance we meet in our work the greater the effort required. In the case of Creation the resistance was nil, since there was nothing before the Creation, but in the case of the Incarnation it was not so. God had, so to say, to exert His divinity, God had to exert violence over Himself, in order to reduce divinity to the smallness, to the nothingness of humanity and to be enclosed in a human wrapping and then be hidden away in the bosom of Mary.

God had to perform a unique and never repeated operation, namely, that of choosing a woman and making her His Mother; to assemble in Her all the marvels of the whole Creation; to render Her Immaculate, Virgin and Mother at the same time. Does this not entail an immense strain on the mighty arm of God? So great was this effort that He, so to say, reached the limit of His power. God could make another thousand universes, create untold millions of beings, multitudes of angels, myriads of stars and skies, much more shining, much more beautiful than the present ones, but He could not achieve a work of greater grandeur than the Mother of God. Apply all this also to Holy Communion. Is not the Eucharist another effort of His mighty arm? Does It not exhaust the wisdom, the power, and even the love of God? Could even so powerful a God give you anything greater than He gives you in the Holy Eucharist?