The Rev’d Jim Lam

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 16 August, 2026. Year A

Readings: Isaiah 7:10-15, Psalm 132:6-10,13-14, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 1:46-55

The Magnificat, or Mary’s song of praise, is a hymn and prayer that I had sang many a time in my younger days at my mother church. Today, as I read the song again in the Gospel, I am touched anew. I have to admit that I stopped myself just in time not to add “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.” – it was the way I used to chant this prayer.

What a pious, joyful and poetic way to prelude the coming of Jesus!
If we go back a bit in the chapter of Luke we read, we would know that Mary’s prayer followed Elizabeth’s salutation. When Elizabeth, a woman, a mere human like Mary herself, was filled with the holy spirit and called her “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43), Mary broke into ecstatic and wondering praise.

Little did she know at that time the deep grieve and pain that she had to endure during the life and passion of the child she was bearing. As Simeon prophesied after the birth of Jesus, “a sword would pierce Mary’s own soul” (re: Luke 23:35). All she knew at that time was: she was just a meek and modest maiden, but was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah!

In those days in Judea, it was common practice for girls in their early teens to be betrothed. Many of them became wives of farmers, fishermen, shepherds and craftsmen. Mary was betrothed to a carpenter. When she knew that she was to bear a son before she was married, even though it was the Messiah, it was natural for her to be deeply frightened. Yet, she willingly accepted this mission from God. She even broke out in a song of praise when she was carried by the Holy Spirit. How did she face this greatest, unexpected challenge in her life?

From her song, we know that Mary was well aware of her lowliness, and understood her own spiritual need for grace. But she also knew that God remembered the lowly and treated them with mercy. She was deeply reliant on God, and rejoiced in God as her Saviour. She was filled with awe and wonder that the Lord should have chosen her and showed her favour. Yet she did not focus on herself but directs all glory to God’s holiness and mercy. She sang: “for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (v. 49).

The coming of the Messiah had been mentioned and anticipated multiple times in the Holy Book. Sometimes I wonder whether maidens in those days would dream to be mother of the Messiah. We know that ancient Israelite societies were intensely patriarchal. A woman’s social status, legal rights, and economic security depended heavily on the men in her life. This meant that having the Messiah as one’s son could be the greatest blessing or else, the bane of one’s existence. And so, if you were in Mary’s shoes, would you dare to accept such an …. unconventional mission, even if it comes from your God? Mary was surely brave, and very pious. Not only did she accepted willingly, but she proclaimed that “surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed” (v.48).
And in her submission, Mary laid her honours down at God’s feet. Who would have believed that her pregnancy was from the Holy Spirit, even if such an event had been foretold long ago (Isaiah 7:14)? Even Joseph, her husband-to-be, was about to break off their engagement, but was stopped from doing so by an angelic visitation. In Mary’s situation, she had to endure other’s ridicule and criticism. She could have been wrongly accused, disowned by her family or even stoned to death. These were the prices Mary must be prepared to pay. But still, she was willing to chance it all. And more so, she joyfully praised the Lord for using her as the instrument to make real his eternal plan.

Mary saw that God had used his power to do great things in her life and for others, to make the impossible possible, and to achieve things beyond human imagination and comprehension. And so, Mary proceeded from the expression of personal gladness and joy to praising the power, holiness and eternal mercy in the Incarnation, even though the deepness and wideness of such incomparable greatness and glory, as manifested in this divine act of God, was far beyond her anticipations.

There was a threefold social and spiritual reversal depicted in Mary’s song. The proud were broken and dispersed, the mighty fall from their thrones, and the hungry or humble were lifted up. It also meant a permanent reshuffling of human values into a divine and righteous alignment, contrasting worldly power with the quiet strength of those who fear God. As Alexander Maclaren put it, “the condition of receiving anything from Him (God) is the humble recognition of emptiness and need.” This means that a person must admit their spiritual poverty, helplessness, and sin before God can fill them with His grace, mercy, and salvation.

Living in the hard times under the reign of Herod the Great, Mary might have shared the thought of many first-century Jews in expecting the Messiah to be a powerful, political and military leader who would overthrow oppressors like Herod and the Romans, liberate Israel, and restore an independent kingdom.

Moreover, Mary recognized that the coming of Jesus was the exact fulfillment of the covenant God made with Abraham. This was realized not because of the merit of Abraham and his descendants, but of God’s own goodness and mercy, which was steady and ongoing across generations. On this, N.T. Wright wrote in Luke for Everyone: “One day, Israel’s God would do what he had said to Israel’s earliest ancestors: all nations would be blessed through Abraham’s family. But for that to happen, the powers that kept the world in slavery had to be toppled.”

Thirty years after Mary’s song of praise, Jesus did topple the world. Although he never led a violent political coup against Rome, Jesus was nonetheless a revolutionary. His teachings and actions radically challenged the established religious, social, and economic orders of the ancient world. He introduced a profound spiritual and social shift centered on the “Kingdom of God,” which inverted conventional power dynamics. Its impact continues to resonate to this day.

As we ponder the Magnificat, let us reorder our hearts to see the world through God’s justice and mercy. Let us put down our worries and cares and go where God is active – among the vulnerable, the forgotten, and the humble – and, in doing so, live out a radical “yes” to His transformative love. (re: editorial, Vatican News, 28 November, 2025) Amen.