by Nonoy Dalman
When Pope John Paul II first came to the Philippines in 1981, the theme for his visit was: “To die for the truth is a gift to some; to live the faith is a call for all.” He brought with him a message of love for the poor when he visited the slums of Tondo and echoed the promise of God: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit God’s kingdom.” The message of the Magnificat follows the same path. It is central to our mission of building the church of the poor. It is the canticle of celebration, the canticle of God the liberator and the canticle of the church of the poor open to all those who wish to be poor in spirit according to the first beatitude of St Matthew.
The word lowly is mentioned twice in the Magnificat. The first, referring to Mary as a humble servant, and the second referring to one who is humble. In both Magnificat and in the 1st Beatitude, God has the same promise. The humble person shall be lifted high, he shall be exalted, thus it is written; the kingdom of God belongs to the lowly, to the humble person.
The lifting up of the ‘lowly’ is the reward from God, which happens when we truly live out our faith as Christians. This is the call for all. As we journey in our service, we are lifted up with the hope that God will give us the grace to become humble servants and as lowly as those whom we serve.
This is what God has reserved for all of us for doing His mighty work. To proclaim the greatness of the Lord is to bring to heart the message of the Magnificat; a message of celebration (Mary sings in praise of God), of liberation (Jesus means to establish God’s kingdom here on earth), of victory and of hope for the poor. This message is a divine call for all of us in CFC.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit God’s kingdom! God shall lift up the lowly and the humble shall be exalted. The “lowly” are the poor in spirit who shall inherit God’s kingdom; that the “lowly” are the humble, those who are detached from wealth, pleasure, power and honor. The “lowly” can be the poor who are poor in spirit – those who keep their eyes on God ready to share their homes and tables with the hungry and the homeless; the rich who are poor in spirit – the rich man who opens his heart to the hungry and deprived; and the powerful who are poor in spirit – the rich man who does not rest so long as a brother or sister is entrapped in injustice and powerlessness, one who holds political power but remembers that it is given to him for the common good only.
So, the message is clear: the “lowly” who are the poor in spirit and the humble shall inherit God’s kingdom. The table of the Magnificat is the opportunity given by God to all of us to become lowly, humble and poor in spirit.
What is the table of the Magnificat?
“Here is a table set before nations and generations the table of the Magnificat, table for the meal of the new family. Already satiated upon arrival, the rich leave emptyhanded. They leave in tears, hungry and thirsty for what they have seen and do not have in which others watch as jealously as they do. They are perhaps generous in that they have given, but they have never been able to share. They are the kind who give without being able to share and, without doubt, this is why their gift- taken from what is superfluous is often superfluous for the poor.
To this table come the poor, the disinherited of civil and religious societies, the least affluent of every nation, those who wager on values other than those which can be measured and quantified. These poor are raised up and satiated. They are filled with what they receive as their rightful share. Admitted to the table of the Magnificat where fellowship ceases to be an empty word, the race of the poor, this new humanity, eats and sated.
In praise of the Lord, they understand the fellowship, recognition, love, the power of liberation, conversion and pardon are given to them like daily bread.” African Synod Bishop Anselme Titianma SANON (Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso)
The Table of the Magnificat is an invitation for us to share our lives with others. Here in this feast we shall be given the opportunity to experience God. Set before us are different expressions of love for the poor, the ‘Table of the Magnificat’ for Couples for Christ. The different programs in our work with the poor are the following: Ancop; (Livelihood, Education, Health, Community Development) and the Social Ministries; (GKare, Isaiah 61:1, Oikos Society, STMA, SOG)
The Magnificat is also a call to celebrate God’s victory over sin. Preparing to join the ‘new meal of the family’ and becoming an active part of it entails the following: knowing self, personal conversion, rising above human weaknesses and becoming lowly servants ourselves.
It is also a call to liberate the afflicted and the oppressed. Preparing for such liberation entails proper organization, onfire evangelization and making ready the lowly. It is God’s call for repentance—for deep, heartfelt, sincere and radical change in a person’s thinking and way of life.
How do we prepare ourselves for the work? We prepare through Prayer (Scripture reading, meditation, silent prayer); by learning to deal with personal issues (pride, anger, greed, lust, sloth, gluttony, envy); and with the practice of humility.
Working with and serving the poor is one of the expressions of discipleship and a natural consequence of personal holiness. Serving the “lowly” is the fruit of one’s spiritual maturity. It is the product of the fullness of God’s transforming love. It is the consequence of one’s spiritual transformation and conversion. It is part of our imaging of Christ.
As we are chiseled into the likeness of Christ, whatever we do for the poor becomes our second nature. We do it out of love for God, not out of compulsion. We do it as our joyful answer to God’s call to serve the least of our brethren. We do it because we ourselves have become lowly for doing God’s work with humility and love.
Lifting the lowly, a call to humility, exemplified by Mary, God’s lowly servant, is a divine call to all. As we journey with our members, we follow the footsteps of Jesus--moving from household to household, from chapter to chapter, from cluster to cluster, from sector to sector, from country to country; traveling here and abroad- living, preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God.
When Jesus walked the earth, he healed the sick, loved the poor, cared for the powerless and brought down the haughty. By doing all these, he gave his followers a taste of what the kingdom of God was like. And he told them essentially: do this, create this here on earth. Fill your lives and fill this land with justice, peace, compassion, love, fairness, equity. Watch me. Follow me. Do this now. With his friends and followers, Jesus created the kingdom of God here on earth. Wherever they went, they preached and established little pockets of heaven. And so we model our lives after Jesus and our Mother Mary.
We hear the Magnificat, the song of Mary, filled with the certainty that God has already shown strength, scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, lifted the lowly, filled the hungry and sent the rich away. We hear God’s divine call to us- charged with the same mission of building the kingdom of God on earth wherever we are…with our acts of compassion and service, our love for the poor, our generosity and our work for justice, our commitment to peace and our allegiance to fairness and equity. As committed followers of Jesus we move on, proclaiming God’s greatness, touching people’s lives, as families in the Holy Spirit renewing the face of the earth.
