Matthew's Magnificat
Canisius | 12 January, 2006 06:41
An example of the meditation/hymn connection I mentioned recently is how Gueranger devotes part of his meditation in vol. 3, pp. 188-9 to the thought of what conversation must have passed between Mary and the magi, and then beginning on p. 192ff. offers a wonderful piece from St. Ephrem devoted entirely to the conversation between Mary and the Magi.
This has been a very fruitful source of meditation for me. It is true that Matthew especially notes that the magi went into the house and found the child "with his mother Mary." Here we see Mary's role perfectly: she must be the voice that speaks for Jesus, that introduces the magi to him, that explains the mysteries!
So what did she say? I suspect we can get a good idea of what she said by looking at the other time she had to take this role, namely in Luke's Gospel when she visited Elizabeth. That terse phrase, "with his mother Mary," is Matthew's equivalent of the "Magnificat" in Luke.
For further (beautiful!) suggestions, see St. Ephrem!
comments
Mary's conversations
Louis | 13/01/2006, 05:11
Fixed it
Peter_Canisius | 13/01/2006, 05:57
I fixed the mistaken reference to St. Joseph the Hymnographer, and devoted a new blog post to your question about the hymn.
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Which conversation are you thinking of? I don't know if I have a different book, but the hymn on page 192 in my book is supposed to be written by St. Ephrem.
I thought this particular conversation(p.192) was actually very strange, because it seems to present Mary as not knowing Who her child is, which obviously isn't true, since the angel Gabriel told her this.
Did you have any thoughts about this?