Tuesday, December 26 : Saint Bede the Venerable

“My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. The first interpretation of these words is undoubtedly to acknowledge the gifts granted to her, to Mary in particular, by God. But then she recalls the universal blessing with which God never ceases to surround the human race. The soul glorifies the Lord when it consecrates all its inner powers on praising and serving God and when, by its submission to the divine commands, it proves that it never loses sight of his power and majesty. The spirit rejoices in God its Savior when it places all its joy in the remembrance of its Creator, from whom it hopes for eternal salvation. Without doubt these words exactly express the thought of all the saints, but it was most especially fitting they should be spoken by the blessed Mother of God who, filled with a special privilege, burned with a wholly spiritual love for the one she had the joy of conceiving in her flesh. More than any other saint she had good reason to rejoice in Jesus – that is to say, in her Savior – because he whom she acknowledged to be the eternal author of our salvation would in time, as she knew, be born in his own flesh and with such authenticity that in one and the same person her son and her God would be truly present… Hence it is a praiseworthy and salutary custom, whose fragrance perfumes Holy Church, when every day at Vespers we sing the Canticle of the Virgin. We may well expect from this that the souls of the faithful, by so often calling to mind the Lord’s incarnation, will be enflamed with even greater fervor and that such a frequent reminder of his holy Mother’s example will strengthen them in virtue. And Vespers is the best time to come back to this song since our souls, tired by the day and drawn this way and that by the day’s thoughts, need to come back together again when the hour of rest draws near so that they may find once more their singleness of focus.
maronite readings – rosary,team