“He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53 NABRE)
These lines will surely sound subversive to someone unfamiliar with Mary’s Magnificat (Latin for “My soul magnifies the Lord”). The tone is quite similar to a manifesto of a revolutionary or messianic figure. The language of overthrowing rulers and sending the rich away empty are not mere rhetoric; it calls for action on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.
As a matter of fact, the public recitation of Mary’s Magnificat was once banned in Guatemala in the 1980s. The government was afraid of the potential revolutionary consequences of this hymn if taken seriously. Sung by Mary herself, an important figure in the Catholic faith, it can inspire the faithful to resist authoritarian regimes.
But I wonder whether Christians really pay attention to the liberationist message of the Magnificat. Perhaps this canticle is overly familiar to Christians therefore it is repeatedly sung or recited mindlessly during worship and prayer. Or, the message is too disturbing to the ears and conscience. The worst thing that can be done is to interpret the song as purely spiritual — devoid of concern for history and society.
The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary invites us to revisit the Magnificat chosen as part of the Gospel reading for the liturgical celebration. The singing of Mary’s Magnificat follows her visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. Both were recipients of God’s loving mercy which brought them so much consolation and joy. Both experienced God as the God of life and liberation.
In defining the dogma of the Assumption, Pope Pius XII declares “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” Not soul alone, but body and soul.
“The subject of the assumption is Mary’s whole person. Mary is not a soul provisionally wrapped in a body, but a person, a body animated by the divine breath, penetrated by God’s grace in every nook and cranny,” explains Ivone Gebara and Mary Bingemer, two liberation theologians from Latin America. Clearly, the Assumption should not be confined to the spiritual sphere.
The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner supports this theological view: “This feast tells us that those whom God loves are redeemed, are saved, are finally themselves; they are so with their concrete history, with their whole bodily nature in which alone a person is truly himself. He is not a ‘ghost,’ nor a ‘soul’ but a human being completely saved. Everything remains. We can’t imagine it.”
As a human being located within a particular time in history, Mary or Miriam of Nazareth lived in an economically poor, politically oppressed, patriarchal, Jewish peasant culture marked by exploitation and violence. With this in consideration, our understanding of Mary’s Assumption becomes more historically relevant and forceful. “Take Mary’s social location out of this analysis, and exegesis loses its sting,” warns Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ.
Weaving together the corporeality of the Assumption and the historical existence of Mary, today’s celebration speaks powerfully of the Mighty One’s preferential option for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. “The assumption is the glorious culmination of the mystery of God’s preference for what is poor, small, and unprotected in this world; there God’s presence and glory can shine,” writes Gebara and Bingemer. At the heart of this Marian dogma is what God has done for Mary.
Every teaching about Mary is theocentric (centered on God). The Magnificat points towards the God who liberates, who has a heart for the small and insignificant. At the same time, we continue to sing this revolutionary canticle for Mary represents us all especially the downtrodden. God’s salvation concerns our bodily well-being as well and our hope lies in God’s salvific act.
As Filipinos who have deep devotion to Mary, as “pueblo amante de Maria” (people in love with Mary), may we be impelled to work for a just society. Only if we will allow ourselves to be disturbed by Mary’s Magnificat and to be open to the perspective of the Assumption as God’s preferential option for the poor will we rediscover and realize that our Marian piety has a social and historical dimension.
Mary always leads us to God who, in the words of Father Pedro Arrupe, SJ, “is not only the God of the poor,” but “in a real sense, God who is poor.” – Rappler.com
Kevin Stephon Centeno is a Jesuit scholastic. His views do not represent the position of the entire Society of Jesus.