Where We Are Most Broken, God’s Love Breaks In First
Mary’s Magnificat proclaims a God who lifts up the lowly — and begins his healing work not with the perfect, but with the poor places inside us.
Dear friends —
This Advent, all paid subscribers are receiving the Letters from Leo Advent Reflection Series: a daily companion to prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas — and to reckon with what his arrival demands of us, personally and publicly, in a moment of deep moral and political crisis.
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The first is our opening Sunday reflection, which sets the tone for the season. The second is a reflection from earlier this month, where I wrote candidly about the isolating pain me and so many others experience during the holidays — and how Advent meets us there, not to deny the loneliness, but to reveal God’s quiet presence within it.
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“He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” — (Luke 1:52-53)
In today’s readings, two mothers — Hannah and Mary — sing of God turning sorrow into joy. In the first reading, Hannah offers her long-awaited son to the Lord with a prayer that foreshadows Mary’s Magnificat.
In the Gospel, Mary proclaims that God has “lifted up the lowly” and “filled the hungry with good things,” overturning the world’s order in favor of the humble (cf. Lk 1:52-53).
Pope Leo XIV notes that Mary’s song “strengthens the hope of the humble, the hungry, the faithful servants of God” — reminding us that God stands with those who have nothing but trust in him.
Throughout this Advent, I’ve reminded you that Christ comes for the broken and the marginalized. But as Christmas nears, I want to make it clear that he just as much comes to heal our inner poverty — the broken parts within each of us.
Every day I wake up conscious of my own shortcomings as a Christian and human being, and my only claim before God is that I am loved by him despite my overwhelming amount of failures each and every day.
Here’s a lesson for all of us.
