Novena for Fr. Jaki - Fifth Day

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

Jews who became Jesus' followers would not have found anything strange in the supposition that the words of the Magnificat came spontaneously to Mary's lips. Precisely because she, as many other Jewish girls, might have known by heart Hannah's song, it would have been easy for her to form a vivid consciousness about the difference between Hannah's song and her Magnificat. For she was not another Hannah but the most special human being ever to walk on earth. For all her Jewishness she was immensely more than Hannah. Whereas almost all lines in Hannah's song evoke belligerence and divine vengeance, the Magnificat echoes the special dispositions of a maiden who wanted to serve and submit wholly to the words God spoke to her through the Angel. Herein lies the perennial appeal of the Magnificat, though only to those who want to serve instead of just jubilating in the belief that lasting joy can be had without unremitting self-effacement.
[Jaki, Mary's Magnificat, introduction]