The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name

15 AUGUST (Lk 1,39-56)

The Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, must be exalted, blessed, sung, praised and celebrated. Her spiritual beauty enchants, attracts, conquers and seduces the heart, spirit, mind, desires and will. Before her brilliance every other thought of beauty is lost, annihilated and evaporated. All the wonders of creation in comparison with her fade away, fall of light, become nothingness and smallness. The Song of Songs tries to describe such beauty. But it is a very small thing. Its amazement at the material, physical and corporeal beauty, even if it is to be carried into the spiritual realm, is quite a small thing. The splendor of the Virgin Mary remains indescribable. Every human mind must surrender. Yet those images say something. They create a new desire of beauty in the heart. “Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, ah, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down the mountains of Gilead” (Cf. Song of Songs 4,1-16).

The other beauty, the one described in the Book of Sirach, is not even enough to sing the glory of the Mother of God. So much did the Lord exalt her. She occupies the highest place in heaven. She sits next to her Son, on the same level of the Blessed Trinity. She only misses the divinity, eternità and deity. She was given every other gift: “Like a cedar on Lebanon I am raised aloft, like a cypress on Mount Hermon” (Cf. Sir 24, 1-18).

Before the beauty of the Mother of God, the heart stops, the mind ceases to think, the spirit interrupts every reflection and even imagination stops. Eyes close to not be struck. It is only necessary to let yourself be inebriated by this radiance, immersing yourself in it, letting yourself be rocked gently until you reach a divine ecstasy. There is no sculptor on earth that can sculpt her, nor painter that can paint her. They are all images and figures of the earth. The image and sculpture made by God is infinitely different. He used “almost godlike” materials. We use the thoughts of earth, material of earth, colours of earth, hands of earth and imagination of earth.

Virgin Mary, you are beautiful, you are great, you are sublime, you are “almost divine.” Thinking about you the Lord did not spare himself in anything. Humanly speaking, you are the unimaginable, the inconceivable and the unthinkable. Only God could think you. He alone was able to realize you. He alone was able to make you so beautiful and stupendous. You are the true image, the true likeness created by Him, outside of Him. Looking at you, God sees himself outside of himself. So beautiful, wise, intelligent and stupendous was the idea he had of you.

During those days Mary set out and travelled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my saviour. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. 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. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Virgin Mary, Mother of God, you who are by the will of the Son on the cross, also my true Mother, you see my littleness, my poverty and my nothingness. See this shattered, battered image that I bear of my Lord and come to my rescue. Hide me inside your almost divine beauty, so that the Father does not see me, but you in all your splendour. Give me a nothing of your love and your grace and I might start that journey that must elevate me to reach you in Heaven.

Entirely beautiful Mother, that charm and suspend the heart beats with your beauty, elevate me before you. For your mercy and pity help me so that I can help you give this world, which is winding more and more into idolatry and immorality, a ray of your magnificent beauty to make it fall in love with you.