Paraphrasing the "Magnificat"

Today, the Catholic Church recalls and celebrates a visit. Mary, newly pregnant, walked a couple of days to visit her cousin, an older woman, who was six months pregnant. When Mary got to Elizabeth’s house, she sang a song that we still have.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, had a wonderful life in many ways, but had some extraordinarily hard times. When she was a teenager, she had some kind of experience of a spiritual visit, in which an angel told her that the Creator of the universe would like her to be the mother of his child. She said yes. Exactly what happened next is entirely private between Mary and God, but she became pregnant. At the time, she was engaged but not married, and there was a scandal in the air. She got through it, but it must have been painful as well as joyful.

Her fiance, later husband, was a carpenter. When the baby was born, the king of that region made a serious effort to locate and kill the child, because of a prophecy about a child who would take the king’s throne. So the family became fugitives -- a day laborer who didn’t know the language of the country where they fled, a wife with a baby who did not resemble the father, and a child wanted by the police. They would never have been allowed across the Rio Grande; if they have fled this way, they would have come across the desert by night. Again, we don’t know any details, and they were probably very happy in many ways, but the situation must have included some amazing pain.

Mary’s husband died before she did; widowed, she stayed with her son, and supported his work. He got in trouble with the law again, and was eventually arrested, tortured, and executed -- while she watched. Some of the best art in the world was inspired by the pain that artists imagine she must have experienced.

Despite all this pain, what we have from her today is this love song. She sang it in Aramaic, and then it was written down in Greek, and people sang it for 10-15 centuries in Latin, and now people sing it in every language in the world. The beauty of it works in translation. Here’s a loose paraphrase.

“My whole heart sings when I think about the person I know and love. If you come to know my heart, you will know and love him, too, because all the beauty of my heart is about him. Just hearing his name thrills me; it is the most beautiful utterance in the world.

“I am the most fortunate girl who ever lived, because he loves me. Probably every girl feels that way, but I am different, because he is different. I am a nobody, a teenager from a hick town in hills on the other side of nowhere, but I know that for all the rest of human history, people will know me, will know my name, will know my story, and will know that I was the luckiest girl ever. That’s not because I am anything special by myself; it is because he chose me. He made me somebody, forever.

“Let me tell you about him. He is generous, and takes care of everyone he meets who is in need. But he does not just throw money at them; he lifts them up and makes each person feel like a prince. He is in fact rich and powerful, but he does not hang around with other rich and powerful people; in fact, when he loses his temper -- which is rare, but impressive when it happens -- it is almost always with rich people who are arrogant. He can’t stand being around them. He has chosen to live with the poor of the world. That’s one of the things about him that I love best, one of the things about him that makes the sound of his name so, so sweet to me.

“He is loyal to his friends. One of the reasons that he is good to me is that he made a promise to my ancestors that he would take care of our family. He made that promise -- not weeks ago, not years ago, not decades ago, but generations and generations ago -- and he kept it.

“Forever, his name is the most beautiful utterance in the world.”

Knights of Columbus and immigration

It is perplexing that one of the leaders of the opposition to the Maryland Dream Act is a Catholic politician whose biography includes membership in the Knights of Columbus. It’s a bit like having the president of the Lions Club poke you in the eye with a stick.

The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic service organization. They don’t drive little cars like the Shriners, but they have some wild feathers and some nifty swords. Toys and jokes aside, they serve. Their best-known charitable work in Maryland is raising funds to help kids with disabilities. But they started in the late 19^th century as a support group for Catholic immigrants.

The Knights of Columbus was originally founded by a diocesan priest in Connecticut, Fr. Michael J. McGivney, to support immigrants. It is perplexing when a Knight is a leader of an organization set up expressly to oppose immigrants’ claims.

The Knights of Columbus describe themselves as “practical Catholics,” meaning that they put their faith into practice. It is perplexing when a Knight works against immigrants who are mostly Catholic.

The Knights of Columbus are completely loyal to the institutional church -- to the Pope, the bishops, the priests who lead the Church. It is perplexing when a Knight works against immigrants rights when the Church has made service to immigrants a high priority, internationally and nationally and locally.

The Knights of Columbus have always held Mary, the mother of Jesus, in high esteem, and have supported awareness of the different shrines related to Mary. The organization’s magazine, Columbia, is loaded with invitations to go on pilgrimages to Marian shrines, and reports about pilgrimages to Lourdes and Fatima and Guadalupe. In America, the most significant shrine related to Mary is in Mexico, where there is an image of the “Virgin of Guadalupe.” In this beautiful image cherished since 1531, it is hard to tell whether Mary is from Judea or from Central America. This image of solidarity with poor native Americans was a key to the evangelization of America. It is perplexing when a Knight rejects this heritage of solidarity with Latin American brothers and sisters.

Columbus did not speak English. He was from southern Europe -- a Latin European.

I don’t think that this prominent Knight has decided not to pay any attention to the clear teaching of the Bible, of Jesus Christ himself, of the Church throughout the ages, of the past several Popes, of the bishops today, of the bishops and priests of Maryland. I don’t think he means to walk away from the work of Fr. McGivney. I’m pretty sure he just never thought about it.

Brother! Can we put an end to this scandal?