Magnify the Lord with Mary

Re-post from a former blog:

I received a request to link up my 6th Quick Take with Fine Linen and Purple for the Celebrating the Assumption Link Up, so I am doing so but I'm making it a post in its own right: to justify that move, I revised the text I had and added a good bit more at the end, so if you've already read my Quick Takes, it is worth skimming this to get to the new stuff.

Thursday was the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, a holy day of obligation celebrating that God assumed (took up) the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into Heaven at the end of her life.

The gospel reading was about the Visitation, which is when the newly pregnant Mary went to visit her cousin, St. Elizabeth, who was very pregnant at the time with St. John the Baptist.  The gospel reading included the text of the Magnificat, the "hymn" from Mary to God. The Visitation is one of the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, and the Magnificat is a popular prayer said daily by millions during evening prayer. So both have long been considered highly fertile ground for reflection by Catholics.

The homily got me thinking. Mary's soul magnified the Lord. What is magnification? Per Wikipedia, "Magnification is the process of enlarging something only in appearance, not in physical size. A magnifying glass, which uses a positive (convex) lens to make things look bigger by allowing the user to hold them closer to his eye."

By way of analogy, Mary didn't actually make God greater somehow, that is impossible. However, Mary causes God to appear greater by bringing Him closer to the human eye. She brought God closer to the human eye by bringing Jesus, the Image of the invisible God, into the world. The eternal Word of God came into the world through the Virgin Mary and became the Incarnate Word, and like the image of fine print when it comes through a magnifying glass, we better behold the Word.

Mary also brings human sanctification closer to the eye. Through her, we see the work God can do in us, the work God wants to do in us. Assuming the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, Body and Soul, magnifies several great truths. God wants to make us holy, He wants us with Him, in Heaven, and He doesn't just want our souls: He wants our bodies too. He created them and they are part of our eternal destiny: resurrection.

When I was Pentecostal we used to sing a song that reminds me of the Magnificat, Mary's song, called "Magnify the Lord." This is the main verse:

Magnify the Lord
Let us exalt His name together
Magnify the Lord
He has done great things!

Mary was the first to receive Christ, she is our foremost example in faith. Like her, let us make the image of God appear greater, let us make Christ easier to see. Magnify the Lord with Mary.