Daily Lectio: Saturday Morning, June 6

Sitting at home today, resting….and reflecting on this piece of the Magnificat:

“For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”

What a challenging verse for us in our age of power-centeredness and ambition, of individualism…

How do we understand this “lowliness?”  Do we understand it as an insult, or something to avoid?  Or, do we understand it as this blessed space?  A space of grace?

While reading it, my mind went to Psalm 139, that wonderfully eloquent song of our deepest identity.

“For it was you who formed my

inward parts;

you knit me together in my

mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and

wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from

you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths

of the earth.”

These wonderful images of God knowing the depths of our being, our true nature….even those parts of ourselves that we don’t want to explore or admit to–maybe especially those places…because those spaces of darkness are the places where the seeds of our deeper realization take root.  We come to know that we are loved no matter what…not in spite of who we are but because of who we are.

Oh to be able to rest in that space, to give thanks for that…to be grateful in our world.

So, I can see how one might not readily want to identify with Blessed Mary on “the lowliness of his servant,” but I also see how this is the key.  This state of lowliness is the countercultural key of God’s grace in our world.

There’s much more to explore around this space…

S+