Advent Magnification

Is our God too small? Perhaps we should follow Mary’s example and magnify the Lord.

In the opening stanzas of the Canticle of Mary (or Mary’s Song), which we call “The Magnificat,” Mary says that her “soul magnifies the Lord.” Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Dictionary.com offers five meanings for the word “magnify.” The first and primary meaning of the word is to enlarge or increase the apparent size of an object by using a lens of some kind.

You have to wonder how a soul can magnify anything, according to this meaning of the word.

Think back to high school and college when you might have looked through the lens of a microscope for the last time. You peered into a mere drop of water and saw amoebas and paramecia floating around and crashing into each other like bumper cars at an amusement park. Or perhaps absorbing one another.

But there are more practical applications for “enlarging or increasing the apparent size of an object by using a lens.” We use a magnifying glass, a la Sherlock Holmes, to read the small...