W herever she went, the Blessed Virgin was a bringer of joy: For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy (Luke1:44), says St. Elizabeth, referring to John the Baptist with whom she was then with child. Hearing such praise from her cousin, Our Lady replied with words which have become that most-beautiful hymn of jubilation: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

In the Magnificat is to be found the deepest meaning of true humility. Mary considers that God has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. Thus, He who is mighty has done great things in her.

On this scale then, one of grandeur and humility, is passed Our Lady’s entire life. What humility, that of my holy Mother Mary! She is not to be seen amidst the palms of Jerusalem, nor – excepting the first one at Cana – at the hour of the great miracles. But she doesn’t flee from the degradation of Golgotha: there she stands, ‘juxta crucem Jesu’, by the Cross of Jesus - His Mother (J.Escrivá, The Way, 507). She never sought the slightest personal glory.

The humility of the Blessed Virgin and the meaning of humility are some of the lessons of and for Christmas 

The virtue of humility, so evident in Our Lady’s life, is truth, the true recognition of what we are and are worth in the eyes of God and of our fellow men. It is also an emptying of ourselves to allow God to work in us with his grace. It is the rejection of appearances and of superficiality; it is the expression of the depth of the human spirit; it is a condition for its greatness (John Paul II, Angelus, 4 March 1979).

It is not opposed to our awareness of the talents we have received, nor to the full use of them with rectitude of intention, for humility does not diminish, but broadens one’s outlook. Humility recognises that all the good in us, whether in the order of nature or in that of grace, belongs to God alone; for of his fullness we have all received (1 Cor1:4). God is all that is great in us; of ourselves we are defective and weak. We come before God as debtors who do not know how to discharge our debts (cf Matt 18:23-35), and for this reason we go to Mary as the Mediatrix of all graces, to the Mother of mercy and tenderness to whom no one has ever had recourse in vain: abandon yourself full of confidence in her maternal womb; ask her to obtain for you this virtue which she prized so dearly. Don’t worry about not being heard. Mary will ask it for you from that God who exalts the humble and crushes the proud, and, since Mary is all-powerful with her Son, you will most certainly be heard (J. Pecci – Leo XIII – Practice of humility, 56). # # #

With permission from Scepter UK. Short excerpt from IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD by Francis Fernandez.

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