At the center of the Magnificat, which gathers momentum from the prophets with the promise of salvation, there is a mention of Divine Mercy that could seem rhetorical. However, it seems to me that the reference to the mercy of the Father, at the center of Mary’s song, is of vital importance and contains the concise explanation for all the exuberant divine facts that lend unheard – of beauty and directness to the poetic outburst of the fifteen-year-old girl who bore Jesus in her womb.
In the first part, Mary exalts “the Almighty who has done great things” to His “servant” so that all generations shall call her blessed. God had performed the miracle of the Incarnation of the Word, through a poor and humble girl from an obscure village of Israel; an act that will lead to the salvation of humanity of all times. Thus she observes: “His name is holy – and his mercy extends from generation to generation.”
Redemption originates from an act of compassion by the Heavenly Father towards his children. If He accomplished that prodigy of love, which only a God could accomplish, of having his Son born of a woman of the people and having him die for the sake of the people, it is all due to an act of mercy, a miracle of mercy that is love brought to its culmination. This demands that we pardon our brother not only seven times, but also up to seventy times seven times; that is, always, and all the way to infinity; and that we love him to the point of giving up our life for him.
God “has helped his servant, Israel – ever mindful of his mercy. . .”Everything in the divine government, everything leads us back to mercy. This will be clarified and confirmed in the behavior of Jesus – out of whose love Mary speaks – when He will feed the crowds and cure the sick; when he will drive the sellers from the Temple and raise his voice against the Pharisees and the proud of heart.
The Magnificat is the anthem of the Christian revolution. But its most revolutionary aspect lies in its origin: mercy. This is why it does not destroy, but creates; because love for God and man does not produce anything else but good.
The Magnificat lays down the directives of the evolutionary process, of change and rebirth, in which the Gospel ideal is translated socially and politically, as well as spiritually; a mutation that originates in love and is embodied in mercy.
There is a new and urgent need for such an ideal today. Ideologies and protests, guerrilla warfare and revolts are breaking out everywhere. They call for greater and beautiful aspirations, while they introduce hateful programs of destruction. Mary teaches us how to orient and construct this revolution.
She is a woman, the Mother of God, who teaches both with her word and her life: the life of the Mother of Mercy. Her example is worth even more today, as we re-evaluate the role of women. Mary teaches us the path of mercy.
By now the absurdity and uselessness of wars, and that is, hatred, is quite obvious, as well as the need for rational systems based on dialogue, negotiation and, above all, of intervention and gifts from those who have, in favor of those who have not. We can see it: sending arms and money to help this or that population serves only to increase the conflicts in which people suffer, agonize and die; besides planting seeds of hatred against the benefactors themselves.
The viewpoint of that young woman, who sang her Magnificat, the method of mercy, among the poor, is a perspective from a divine and human intelligence, the only one capable of resolving the problems of a world threatened by the ultimate definitive catastrophe, provoked by the stupidity of hatred which is a recipe for suicide.
To reacquire peace and well-being, we need to take care of the material and moral wounds of those who suffer, from whatever side of the ocean they come, in Europe or in Asia, in America or in Africa, employing compassion that is the fruit of understanding; a charity that does not grow weak, but abolishes injustices and selfishness, to transform coexistence into community, and nations into a family. Jesus, the Son of Mary, desires this, as Mary his Mother assures us.
