Canticle of Mary — Luke 1:46-55

Mary’s own prayer, sung by the Church every evening.

When Elizabeth greets her as the mother of her Lord, Mary answers with a song. It is the longest passage the Gospels give her, and it is not a gentle lullaby: it is a hymn about a God who pulls down the mighty and fills the hungry. The Church has sung it at Vespers every evening for over fifteen hundred years.

The Prayer

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid;
for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me,
and holy is His name.
And His mercy is from generation unto generations,
to them that fear Him.

He hath shewed might in His arm:
He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat,
and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel His servant,
being mindful of His mercy.

As He spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his seed for ever. Amen.

About This Prayer

The text is Luke 1:46-55, given here in the Douay-Rheims translation. It is prayed at Evening Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours every day of the year, and it forms the meditation of the second Joyful Mystery. Mary’s song borrows heavily from Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2 — the prayer of another woman whose unexpected child changed Israel’s history.

It is worth noticing what she is grateful for. Not comfort, not safety, and not an easy life: she thanks God for regarding her lowliness, and then describes a world turned upside down.