Advent IV: God Has Done Great Things for Me
My Soul Gives Glory to My God
God Has Done Great Things
Mary is one in a line of great woman composers in scripture, and her revolutionary Magnificat is a prophetic aria that echoes earlier songs by Miriam, Hannah, and Deborah. The title is taken from the first word of the text in the Latin Vulgate (a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible), and Luke is the only Gospel writer to record the song/prayer that welled up in Mary upon meeting her cousin Elizabeth, who was also miraculously pregnant.
Amid the complex social dynamics of Mary’s unexpected pregnancy, which placed her marriage, social standing, and perhaps even her life in jeopardy, her song demonstrates remarkable courage and resilience. She gives praise and honor to the Source of life, praising the God who demonstrates faithful love and saving power to people of every generation. And in the same breath she heralds the day when those confident in their power, possessions, and privilege will fall. Her holy protest song does not simply express disapproval or anger with the status quo but prays with confidence echoed in the words of political activist Arundhati Roy: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
INVITATION TO DEEPER LISTENING:
For the final week of our Advent hymn study, we’ll hear Mary’s song from Luke 1:46-55 in two different musical settings. Before you engage the recordings below, I invite you to take some time with the text alone.
Read the passage aloud slowly and expressively, as you might read a piece of poetry. What words or phrases delight or surprise you? What do you notice in the sound of the words, the quality of the consonants, and the shape of specific words and phrases?
Trying chanting the Magnificat on one note or even improvise a simple melody for the text. How does singing change your experience of the text? What words or phrases did you feel led to accent or stress?
Explore a few translations of the Magnificat, perhaps from different traditions. A few are listed below. Does a new translation open up new understanding for you? What do you hear that you didn’t before?
The Book of Common Prayer and ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy)
Translation by Mary Davenport (in honor of those fighting to end the murders of Black men and women)
The Message (Eugene Peterson)
I imagined this metrical paraphrase of the Magnificat as a kind of unaccompanied protest song. It begins simply and adds voices and rhythmic energy on each verse, much like a protest builds up energy over time. The fourth and fifth verses are sung in canon, creating overlapping waves that remind me of the way chants echoed down the concrete canyons of New York City during early Black Lives Matter protests.
The video includes photos and video clips from protests and political actions I have attended in New York City and St. Louis, Missouri.
While my faith has compelled me to participate in marches and civil disobedience over the past years, there are so many ways we individually and collectively work for justice. As we reflect on the Magnificat, I don’t want us to miss the seeds of change sown through songs we share in sanctuaries, fellowship halls, and faith formation spaces, as well as on the streets.
FURTHER READING and LISTENING:
Dr. Miriam Therese Winter is a Roman Catholic nun, theologian, author, and a prolific composer who currently teaches at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. Following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, she was a pioneer in introducing new folk-inspired music within the liturgy of the Catholic Church. The music she wrote and recorded with the Medical Mission Sisters was extraordinarily popular in its time, and her Mass of a Pilgrim People was first performed and recorded in Carnegie Hall.
Her metrical paraphrase of the Magnificat was published in God with Us, Resources for Prayer and Praise (1979) and later revised and published with more inclusive language (including the phrase “and holy is her name” in verse 2). Dr. Winter explains how she understands the Magnificat through the lens of her experiences as a health worker in the developing world:
“Often through the centuries, the Magnificat has been considered a dangerous hymn because it sings of overturning the status quo, promising food for the hungry, power for the powerless, and a reversal of economic fortunes. It is a song of hope for times of disparity and for any situation in which we feel personally or systematically overwhelmed.”
Learn more about this setting from Dr. C. Michael Hawn’s brief, informative blog post.
My Soul Gives Glory to my God is set to the tune MORNING SONG (also known as CONSOLATION above), a short, sturdy, minor-key tune that has a wonderful rising and falling shape. You may also know it as the musical setting for another Advent hymn, The King Shall Come when Morning Dawns.
While the composers of many Sacred Harp tunes are unknown, scholar Emily Brink believes this melody is by Elkanah Kelsey Dare (1782-1826), a Methodist minister and very possibly the music editor for John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second (1813), a collection that includes more than a dozen of his tunes.
True to the folk-inspired music Miriam Therese Winter wrote in the late 60’s and 70’s, her metrical paraphrase of the Magnificat was originally accompanied by guitar. It now appears in many denominational hymnals in keyboard arrangements.
Here are a few other settings of the Magnificat to inspire you this season.
A New Magnificat by Carolyn Jennings combines the Song of Hannah from 1 Samuel with the Magnificat. There’s a beautiful refrain, too (“My heart o’erflows, Alleluia!”), which weaves the congregation into this expressive setting. You can find a sample score here if you’re curious to see more.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s ambitious setting is full of drama and richness, with each verse of the text treated as an individual movement for chorus and/or soloist.
Magnificat, We Sing by celebrated American composer Alice Parker is another creative adaption of the Magnificat, this time joined with the song of her cousin Elizabeth. Anchoring the setting is Alice own chant-like hymn paraphrase of Mary’s song. I’m honored to say I am the organist in this recording.
This ethereal setting by contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt was one of his first choral pieces to be widely performed around the world.