My Soul Magnifies the Lord

“Nor need we power or splendour, wide hall or lordly dome; the good, the true, the tender, these form the wealth of home.” Sarah Josepha Hale

In the mid-nineteenth century, Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor of the Goody's Lady Book, a periodical for women, took it under her wing to be the advocate for a national day of thanksgiving, a holiday established by the federal government which advocated a celebration of the gifts we have been given and a recognition that these are gifts of grace which have been given to us in our Creator's providence and love of creation. She petitioned numerous presidents, and finally was able to convince President Abraham Lincoln that a national day of thanks was not only valuable but necessary.

Her argument came at a most unexpected moment in our nation's history - in the midst of the Civil War, September 1963, she presented the president with a unifying and uniting idea. Along with our responsibility of stewardship over earthly creation, humankind has been given the gifts of abundance, abundant live, abundant resources, abundant beauty. These gifts themselves mandate our praise and thanksgiving to our God.

Go back to the first century of Palestine, which like our own land of the mid-nineteenth century, found itself in the midst of civil strife, community challenge, hunger and oppression. In the midst of that amazing time, our Creator sent a messenger to an unwed teenage girl, that she had been chosen and filled with grace to be the one to bear the Incarnate God into this world. She too, like Sarah Hale, became a messenger herself, proclaiming this great news - that our God who loved us and who cared for us wished us to know it so perfectly that the chasm between Creator and creation would be spanned, that God would become human, and that she, Mary, would be the God-Bearer. Her words, sung out in joy in the gospel of Luke, celebrate the grace of our God.

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

As we begin our Advent journey, a time of preparation for the Incarnation of our God, let us, like Mary, give thanks for God's grace, God's abundance, and God's love of creation. By offering our thanks and praise to God, we do indeed make room for him to enter into our homes, our lives, our selves.

Peace in Christ,
Fr. Shawn