Fr. Justin Sheehan, OCSO
4th Thursday of Advent
Our Cistercian Father Adam of Perseigne has a fine commentary on this morning’s Gospel. In a letter to Andrew, Canon of Tours, he asks how Mary’s soul “magnifies” – proclaims the greatness of – the Lord. And he answers, addressing himself to Mary:
“You magnify him, not by giving him an increase of his boundless magnitude, but by bringing, amid the world’s darkness, the light of the true divinity….You magnify him when you are raised to so high a dignity that you receive the fullness of grace; when you merit to receive the visit of the Holy Spirit; and when, becoming the Mother of God, while remaining an inviolate Virgin, you give birth to a Savior for a world that is being lost.
“But where do you get the power to do this? From the fact that the Lord is with you, the Lord who makes his gifts become your merits.
“Your soul, then, magnifies the Lord only in the sense that you yourself are magnified by him, even to receiving magnificently the fullness of grace and reaching the magnificence of a unique glory….For you are the receptacle of the Word, the cellar of the new wine which inebriates the sobriety of believers.”
It is that “new wine” which we will be receiving at this Eucharist. May our souls, too, proclaim the greatness of the Lord.
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