The Feast Day of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is August 15.
There’s no better meditation for this day than the words of Mary’s poetic sermon known as the Magnificat. In these lines, mercy and justice meet. The Magnificat echoes an ancient hope from Psalm 85:10: “Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Mercy and justice go together.
I hope you’ll think about that today. What would the world be like if mercy and justice met? How can we, in our day and place, embody the union of the two?
A fourteen year-old Jewish girl, pregnant out of wedlock, gave us her hopeful vision of what it would mean long ago.
Luke 1:46-55
Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
INSPIRATION
Excerpts from two Mary poems by Gerald Manley Hopkins, one emphasizes a spirituality of the earth and the other of air, using archetypes of Mother Earth and Sophia Wisdom in Mary’s praise.
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all—
This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.
— Gerard Manley Hopkins, from “May Magnificat,” you can read the entire poem HERE
Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere. . .
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air. . .
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son. . .
Be thou then, thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
— Gerald Manley Hopkins, from “The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe,” read the entire poem HERE
Sunday Musings
GMH is my husband's favorite poet, and one of mine as well. He is this dazzle of softness and Def poetry that remind me of the Bronx (where I am from) and longing and keen awareness. I just came by to say I love the texture of the Janet McKenzie painting coupled with Hopkins.
Good travels to you!
Thank you