Prayer · Scripture
The Magnificat: Mary’s Song in Full, Verse by Verse
Mary’s song of praise from Luke 1:46–55 in the Douay-Rheims Bible: what each verse means, its roots in Hannah’s song, the Latin, and how the Church prays it every evening
The Magnificat is Mary’s song of praise to God from Luke 1:46–55, which she prayed when she visited her cousin Elizabeth.
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.
(At Evening Prayer, the Church ends the canticle with the Glory Be.)
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The Church prays it every day at Evening Prayer, or Vespers, praising the God who lifts up the lowly and keeps his promises.
Go deeper
What is the Magnificat? Mary’s song at the Visitation
2 min readThe Magnificat is the song Mary prayed in the house of her cousin Elizabeth, soon after the angel Gabriel came to her at Nazareth.
The Magnificat is the song Mary prayed in the house of her cousin Elizabeth, soon after the angel Gabriel came to her at Nazareth. St. Luke tells the story in the first chapter of his Gospel. Mary has just said yes to God: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Then she sets out at once: “Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda” (Luke 1:39).
Elizabeth, old and once barren, is six months pregnant with the child who will be John the Baptist. When Mary greets her, “the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost” (Luke 1:41). Elizabeth gives Mary the words Catholics still pray in the Hail Mary, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Luke 1:42), and asks: “whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43).
Mary does not answer by talking about herself. She turns the praise to God, and Luke gives her answer as a song of ten verses (Luke 1:46–55). Its name is its first word in Latin, Magnificat: “magnifies.” The Church also calls it the Canticle of Mary or the Song of Mary.
The Catechism calls it “the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church” (CCC 2619). It is Mary’s own prayer, and it is also ours: the Church has taken it up and prays it with her every day.
What the Magnificat means, verse by verse
5 min read
The song has two movements. In the first, Mary praises God for what he has done for her (verses 46 to 50). In the second, she sees in her own story the way God has always acted, and will act, for his people (verses 51 to 55).
“My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” To magnify the Lord is not to make God bigger. It is to declare how great he is, the way a lens makes something small easier to see. “Soul” and “spirit” here mean the same thing: the whole person. The Catechism uses Mary’s song to describe adoration itself: “to praise and exalt him and to humble oneself, as Mary did in the Magnificat” (CCC 2097). The prophet Habakkuk had prayed in nearly the same words: “I will joy in God my Jesus” (Habakkuk 3:18, Douay-Rheims), and the name Jesus means “God saves” (CCC 430). Mary calls God her Savior too. The Church teaches that she was saved in a unique way, preserved from original sin from the first moment of her conception, “redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son” (CCC 492; see the Immaculate Conception).
“Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” “Humility” here means lowliness: Mary is a young woman from a small village, with nothing the world would notice. God looked on her. And she was lowly in heart as well as in station: the woman God raised highest calls herself his “handmaid,” the word she used to the angel. The second half was already coming true: Elizabeth had just called her blessed (Luke 1:42, 1:45), and it has gone on coming true ever since. The Catechism quotes this verse when it says the Church’s devotion to Mary “is intrinsic to Christian worship” (CCC 971).
“Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.” The great thing is the child she is carrying: God the Son, made man in her. Mary takes no credit for it. The one who did it is “mighty,” and his name is holy, as the psalm says: “Holy and terrible is his name” (Psalm 111:9, 110:9 in the Douay-Rheims).
“And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.” Here the song widens from Mary to everyone. What God did for her is the same mercy he has shown in every age, as Psalm 103 says: “the mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity upon them that fear him” (Psalm 103:17, 102:17 in the Douay-Rheims). To “fear” God in Scripture is not mainly to be afraid of him. It is to take him seriously, with reverence and trust.
“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.” This is the great reversal at the center of the song. God’s “arm” is his power, the arm that brought Israel out of Egypt. It is God who scatters the proud, and he needs no army: he scatters them in the very place they felt safest, “the conceit of their heart,” their own proud plans. The same reversal runs through the wisdom books: “God hath overturned the thrones of proud princes, and hath set up the meek in their stead” (Sirach 10:14, 10:17 in the Douay-Rheims).
“He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.” The psalm had promised it: the Lord “hath filled the hungry soul with good things” (Psalm 107:9, 106:9 in the Douay-Rheims). Notice the tense. Mary sings of these things as already done, though most of them were still to come. She speaks as the prophets did, so sure of God’s promise that she can call it finished, because in her it has already begun. The Magnificat is not a call to hate anyone. It is a warning to the proud and the self-satisfied, as all of us are at times, and good news for anyone who comes to God with empty hands. It is also about real hunger. The God of this song sees the poor: he “blesses those who come to the aid of the poor” (CCC 2443) and warns those who turn away from them. A Church that sings it every evening cannot forget them. The Catechism calls it “the song of the ‘poor’ whose hope is met by the fulfillment of the promises” (CCC 2619).
“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.” The song ends where God’s story with his people began. God had called Israel “my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend” (Isaiah 41:8), and the prophet Micah had prayed: “Thou wilt perform the truth of Jacob, the mercy to Abraham: which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old” (Micah 7:20). Mary says that God has remembered. The promise made to Abraham long before is being kept, and it is being kept in her Son.
The Magnificat and the Song of Hannah
3 min readMary’s song did not come from nowhere.
Mary’s song did not come from nowhere. Almost every line of it echoes the Old Testament she grew up praying, and above all the song of Hannah in the First Book of Samuel. (The Douay-Rheims, quoted here, follows the Latin Bible: it calls that book the First Book of Kings and spells her name Anna.)
Hannah’s story is the story of a woman God remembered. She had no children, and at the sanctuary of Shiloh she “prayed to the Lord, shedding many tears” (1 Samuel 1:10, Douay-Rheims). She begged God to “look down on the affliction of thy servant” and not to forget his “handmaid” (1 Samuel 1:11). God heard her: she “conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel” (1 Samuel 1:20). When she brought the child to the house of the Lord, “Anna prayed, and said” (1 Samuel 1:28), and her song follows:
“My heart hath rejoiced in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God” (1 Samuel 2:1, Douay-Rheims). “The bow of the mighty is overcome, and the weak are girt with strength” (2:4). “The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth. He raiseth up the needy from the dust, and lifteth up the poor from the dunghill: that he may sit with princes” (2:7–8).
Put the two songs side by side and the family likeness is plain: the heart that rejoices in God, the lowly servant God looks upon, the mighty brought down, the hungry filled, the poor lifted up. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 called the Magnificat “the last canticle of the Old and the first of the New Testament.”
There is one great difference. Hannah sang over a son she gave to God. Mary sings over the Son who is God. Hannah’s song ends by looking ahead: the Lord “shall exalt the horn of his Christ” (1 Samuel 2:10), that is, of his anointed king. Mary is carrying that Christ. The Church puts the two songs together on December 22, a few days before Christmas: when it falls on a weekday, the Mass reads the story of Hannah bringing Samuel to the Lord, sings her song as the psalm, and reads the Magnificat as the Gospel.
Other voices from the Old Testament are woven in as well. Leah, naming her son Asher, said “women will call me blessed” (Genesis 30:13). The Book of Job speaks of the God “Who setteth up the humble on high” (Job 5:11). The psalmist sang that God “hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel” (Psalm 98:3, 97:3 in the Douay-Rheims). Mary knew the Scriptures by heart, and when the moment came, she prayed in their words.
When is the Magnificat prayed? Every evening at Vespers
3 min readThe Liturgy of the Hours, the daily prayer of the whole Church, turns on two hinges, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 37).
Every evening. The Liturgy of the Hours, the daily prayer of the whole Church, turns on two hinges, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 37). At the high point of Evening Prayer, also called Vespers, the Church prays the Magnificat, just as it prays Zechariah’s song, the Benedictus, every morning (GILH 50). At Night Prayer it prays a third Gospel canticle, Simeon’s song, the Nunc Dimittis. Priests, religious and many lay people pray Vespers each day, so the Magnificat travels around the world each evening with the sunset.
The Church treats it like the Gospel itself. The Instruction asks that the three Gospel canticles be given “the same solemnity and dignity as are customary at the proclamation of the gospel itself” (GILH 138). So everyone stands for it (GILH 263), makes the Sign of the Cross at its first words (GILH 266), and at a solemn Vespers the altar and the people may be incensed while it is sung (GILH 261). Each day it is framed by a short antiphon that changes with the feast and the season. In the last days of Advent, from December 17 to 23, those antiphons are the O Antiphons, the source of the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” At the end comes the Glory Be, as after the psalms.
Why the evening? The earliest record of the Magnificat in the Church’s daily prayer, the Rule written by St. Caesarius of Arles before 502, put it in the morning office, where the Eastern Churches still sing it. The Roman tradition gave it to the evening. A medieval liturgist, Durandus, offered a reason that has stayed with the song: the world was saved in its evening, by Mary’s yes to God (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910).
On Mary’s feasts. The Visitation, the feast of Mary’s journey to Elizabeth, has been kept on May 31 in the Roman calendar since 1969 (it was July 2 from 1389). The Visitation is also the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary: the mysteries of the Rosary set out all twenty. And on the Assumption, August 15, the Gospel of the Mass of the day is the Visitation, Mary’s song included (Luke 1:39–56).
In music. Because it is sung at every Vespers, the Magnificat may have been set to music more often than any other hymn of the Church. Palestrina alone left about thirty settings, Monteverdi included two in his Vespers of 1610, and Bach composed his Latin Magnificat in 1723. Christians of other traditions pray it too: Anglicans sing it at Evensong, the Evening Prayer of the Book of Common Prayer, and Lutherans at Vespers. It is a song that divided Christians can still sing together.
How to pray the Magnificat at home
3 min readYou do not need a breviary.
At the end of the day. You do not need a breviary. Stand, if you can, and make the Sign of the Cross, as the Church does at Vespers. Pray the ten verses slowly, then the Glory Be. If you use a breviary or an app for Evening Prayer, its English will be a newer translation, but it is the same song. Before you begin, think of one thing God did for you today, however small: a meal, a kindness, a worry that came to nothing. Then “he that is mighty, hath done great things to me” becomes your own sentence, not only Mary’s.
As an examination of the day. The Magnificat is a good mirror. Where was I proud today? Where was I hungry, and who filled me? Who was the lowly person I walked past? It is a gentler way to look back on a day than a list of failures, because it begins with what God has done.
When it is hard to give thanks. Mary did not sing from an easy place. She was young and newly pregnant in a way few around her could understand, and her road would lead to the foot of the Cross (John 19:25), where, as Simeon had told her, a sword would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:35). Her praise was not a feeling. It rested on who God is and on what he had promised. On a day when you cannot feel grateful, you can still pray it: say the words as hers first, and let them become yours slowly. And if tonight you are the lowly one or the hungry one, notice whose side the song is on.
With your family. The Church encourages families to pray parts of the Liturgy of the Hours together when they can (GILH 27). If you are expecting a child, it is yours in a special way: it was first sung by one expectant mother to another. The Magnificat is short enough for children to learn whole, and they understand its reversals quickly: the proud brought down, the hungry fed. In Advent, pray it each evening with the O Antiphon of the day.
A prayer to the Father, to say before the Magnificat:
Father, you looked on the lowliness of your handmaid
and did great things in her.
At the end of this day, whatever it held,
open my eyes to the good you have done for me,
make my heart humble enough to praise you,
and let me carry your Son to others, as Mary did.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
AngelGuard also has the Magnificat Shield, a protection prayer for spiritual battle built on Mary’s song: it asks for her intercession, then prays through the canticle’s lines, turning the verses about God’s mercy and his mighty arm into petitions for his protection against the enemy. This page keeps to the Gospel’s own words.
The Magnificat in Latin
2 min readThis is the Latin of the Vulgate, the Church’s Latin Bible, as printed in the Clementine edition of 1592.
This is the Latin of the Vulgate, the Church’s Latin Bible, as printed in the Clementine edition of 1592. The Douay-Rheims translates this text, so the two match line for line. It is the Latin sung at Vespers for centuries, and the words of the classic chant and choral settings.
Magnificat anima mea Dominum:
et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae:
ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes,
quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est:
et sanctum nomen ejus,
et misericordia ejus a progenie in progenies
timentibus eum.
Fecit potentiam in brachio suo:
dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede,
et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis:
et divites dimisit inanes.
Suscepit Israel puerum suum,
recordatus misericordiae suae:
sicut locutus est ad patres nostros,
Abraham et semini ejus in saecula.
Magnificat anima mea Dominum: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” The Latin the Church prints today, in the Liturgy of the Hours and in the Compendium of the Catechism, follows a lightly revised text in three places: salvatore meo for salutari meo, in progenies et progenies for a progenie in progenies, and recordatus misericordiae without suae. The meaning does not change. “Ejus” is often printed “eius”; it is the same word. In Spanish the canticle is the Magníficat, el cántico de María, which many people in Mexico call “la Magnífica.”
Is the Magnificat a prayer to Mary? Why it leads to Christ
2 min read
No. The Magnificat is Mary’s prayer to God, and when we pray it we pray with her, not to her. Catholics do ask Mary to pray for us, as in the Hail Mary, but this song is a different kind of prayer: pure praise, and all of it goes to God. Nearly every verb in it belongs to God: he regarded, he did great things, he showed might, he put down, he filled, he received. Mary’s part is the part of faith: to believe, to receive and to magnify.
That is exactly why the Church loves to pray it with her. The Catechism says it is “the thanksgiving of the whole People of God” that Mary lifts up to the Father in the Holy Spirit, “while carrying within her the eternal Son” (CCC 722). In her, God’s Son had just taken flesh, and the first person to sing about it was his mother. Through her, the Catechism says, the Spirit makes the Word known to the poor and to the first Gentiles, and “the humble are always the first to accept him” (CCC 724–725).
Mary never points to herself. Jesus, the Catechism says, is “the only mediator,” and Mary is “wholly transparent to him” (CCC 2674). At Cana she told the servants: “Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye” (John 2:5). In the Magnificat she does the same thing in song. Elizabeth called her blessed “that hast believed” (Luke 1:45), and later Jesus himself said: “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:28). Mary’s greatness is that she heard God’s word and kept it, “pondering” it in her heart (Luke 2:19).
So the Magnificat teaches us to pray the way she prayed: to start with what God has done, to see our own small lives inside his great promise, and to let all praise pass through us to him. The Catechism sums up her prayer as “the generous offering of her whole being in faith” (CCC 2622).
Questions
Where is the Magnificat in the Bible?
In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 46 to 55. It comes right after Elizabeth greets Mary at the Visitation (Luke 1:39–45), and Luke says Mary then stayed with Elizabeth about three months (Luke 1:56).
Why is it called the Magnificat?
Because “Magnificat” is its first word in Latin: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum” means “My soul magnifies the Lord.” It is also called the Canticle of Mary or the Song of Mary.
What does “my soul magnifies the Lord” mean?
It means “my whole self declares how great God is.” To magnify the Lord is not to make him greater but to make his greatness seen, the way a lens makes something easier to see. The older Catholic English of the Douay-Rheims says “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” The Catechism links it to adoration: to praise and exalt God “as Mary did in the Magnificat” (CCC 2097).
Do you say the Glory Be after the Magnificat?
Yes, at Evening Prayer. As with the psalms of the Liturgy of the Hours, the Magnificat ends with the Glory Be: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” The words of Scripture end at “to Abraham and to his seed for ever.”
From Scripture · Luke 1:46–55
Upcoming · Oct 28
Sts. Simon and Jude
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