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A rich woman who took the Magnificat seriously
Vida Dutton Scudder, an early 20th-century radical, points Christians to solidarity and martyrdom.
If anyone is expecting a lullaby, they better think again.
Imagining a new political economy with Miriam of Nazareth
Abortion is about real lives enmeshed in the realities of home and work and wages and debt.
Mary’s song reveals her politics of mercy
I think Jesus learned his prophetic ministry from his mother.
Mary's joy is for everyone
The Magnificat rejoices in a God who acts within human history.
Vivaldi wrote his Magnificat for a choir of female orphans to sing for their supper. They were truly singing Mary's song.
by Samuel Wells
Like many pastors, I remember clearly the first sermon I ever preached. It was during my second semester of seminary, and I probably worked on it for 50 hours. Each detail was written and rewritten until I was confident I had produced the greatest theological document by a seminarian in quite some time.
Christians have always been uncomfortable with the Magnificat. Advent takes us places we would rather not go.
I’m taking a class on the Gospel of Luke this semester, and one of my assignments is to engage in an ongoing spiritual practice related to that particular Gospel. So for the entire semester I am reading the Magnificat daily. It’s a passage that I’ve been drawn to in recent years, but it has been particularly illuminating to be dwelling on it during Lent this year, since it is typically confined to the Advent season. Somehow the triumphal language of the justice that God has already accomplished fits with the modern treatment of Advent as a celebratory season. But Lent is a season of penance, which puts an entirely different spin on the text.
The greatest Christmas carol in history was not written by Irving Berlin or Nat King Cole. The greatest carol is not “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” or “White Christmas” or even “Silent Night.” The greatest carol was composed 2,000 years ago by a pregnant teenage girl who was visiting her cousin Elizabeth.
My favorite Christmas book is The Donkey’s Dream, which is about the journey Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem. Meant for young children, Barbara Helen Berger’s story is a brilliant and subtle work of theology. Or perhaps antitheology, as it allows simple images to tell us more than words can convey about what the incarnation signifies.