11 December 2026 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things.” Luke 1:52–53
Mary's song celebrates a God who turns the world upside down: the proud scattered, the powerful brought down, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled. It is not a political programme but the logic of the Kingdom, already visible in a poor girl of Nazareth who carries the Son of God.
Paul applies that logic to money: give according to what you have, so that there may be “a fair balance between your present abundance and their need.” As in the desert, “the one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.” The 25 Days' Fast is meant to make room for such sharing.
Theme: “He has filled the hungry with good things.”
The Magnificat's reversal and Paul's call to fair sharing.
“He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap.” 1 Samuel 2:8
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things.” Luke 1:52–53
Apply: Do one act of respect for someone overlooked.
“But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.” Exodus 16:18
“He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” Luke 1:54–55
Apply: Give what you save by fasting to the poor.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” Jeremiah 31:3
“His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” Luke 1:50
Apply: Pray the Magnificat this evening.
God's mercy lifts the lowly and feeds the hungry.
Our fasting should do the same.
Take-home resolution: Give the savings of the 25 Days' Fast to a family in need.
Dear friends, St Paul writes to the Corinthians about a collection for the poor Christians of Jerusalem. He does not command; he encourages: it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need (2 Corinthians 8:13–14). Christian giving is about fairness and fellowship.
He reminds them of Christ's example: though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Christmas is exactly this: the eternal Son becoming poor in a manger. Our giving at Christmas is a small imitation of his.
In the Gospel Mary sings her Magnificat. My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant (Luke 1:46–48). Mary knows she is small, and that is why she sees God's greatness.
Then she sings of God's great reversal: he has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:51–53). God is on the side of the poor and the humble.
This is not a political slogan; it is the logic of the Kingdom. The proud cannot receive God, because they are full of themselves. The rich who trust in wealth leave empty. The humble and the hungry are filled.
Our Nombu is not complete without almsgiving. Our ancestors used to set aside a handful of rice from every meal during the fast for the poor. Let us revive that custom in our own way: set aside the money saved by fasting, and give it to someone in need before Christmas.
Let us pray the Magnificat slowly today, and ask Mary to give us humble hearts and open hands. Amen.
Children, Mary sang that God loves the poor. Share something with a poor child this Christmas!
Holy God, you lift up the lowly and fill the hungry. Make my fasting generous and my heart humble, like Mary's. Amen.
Paul asks the Corinthians to finish their collection for the poor Christians of Jerusalem, so that there may be “a fair balance”. Mary sings of the God who “has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty”. On the feast of 8 December we dwelt on the first half of this song, about what God did for her. Today we listen especially to its second half, about what God does in the world. Her song and Paul's collection point the same way: God's coming changes who has what.
Setting.
For years Paul organised a collection among his Gentile churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:10; Romans 15:25–27). For him it was more than relief: it was a sign that Jews and Gentiles are one body in Christ. The Corinthians had begun it eagerly a year earlier (8:10), then let it drop. Paul, writing from Macedonia, gently urges them on. Just before our reading he gives the deepest reason: though Christ was rich, he became poor for our sake (8:9). Our passage begins in the middle of a sentence.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has” (8:12)
A comfort to the poor who give little, and a question to those who could give more. Compare the widow's coin (Luke 21:1–4).
“your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.” (8:14)
Today one gives; tomorrow one may receive. Perhaps Paul is also thinking of what Jerusalem gave the Gentiles: the spiritual riches of the Gospel (Romans 15:27).
“As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.”” (8:15)
Exodus 16:18. In the desert, however much each one gathered of the manna, each had enough. Paul sees in the Church the same providence, now working through human hands.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism refers to this passage when it explains “our daily bread”: poverty in the spirit of the Beatitudes means sharing, not by force but out of love, so that the abundance of some may remedy the needs of others (CCC 2833). It teaches the universal destination of the earth's goods (CCC 2402–2406) and quotes St John Chrysostom: not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them (CCC 2446).
Setting.
The Magnificat stands in the line of Israel's songs of deliverance: Miriam's (Exodus 15), Deborah's (Judges 5) and above all Hannah's (1 Samuel 2:1–10). Its second half turns from Mary's own story to God's way with the whole world. The speaker is a poor woman of a land under Rome's power, in the time of Herod. Israel's “poor of the Lord” had long hoped for this.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;” (1:52)
The Greek verbs are past tenses: Mary sings of the future as if it had already happened, as the prophets do, because in the child she carries God has already begun it.
“he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (1:53)
This agrees with Luke's own beatitudes and woes (6:20–26). Being rich is not the fault in itself; the danger is the self-sufficiency that needs nothing from God. Hannah sang the same thing (1 Samuel 2:5).
“according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”” (1:55)
The song ends with memory: this is no new God. A note on the text: at v. 46 a few old Latin witnesses read “And Elizabeth said”, but nearly all manuscripts, and the Church's constant reading, give the song to Mary.
“And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.” (1:56)
Three months, like the stay of the ark in the house of Obed-edom (2 Samuel 6:11). Luke mentions it simply. The one who sings of reversals also stays and helps.
How the Church reads it.
St Paul VI wrote that Mary of Nazareth, while completely devoted to God's will, was far from timidly submissive; she proclaims that God vindicates the humble and the oppressed (Marialis Cultus 37). St John Paul II saw in the Magnificat the source of the Church's love of preference for the poor (Redemptoris Mater 37). The Catechism takes the song as a model of adoration: to adore God is to confess with Mary that he has done great things (CCC 2097).
Is the Magnificat a call to political revolution?
Not as a program of violence. The one who acts here is God, and the reversal begins with the proud “in the thoughts of their hearts” (1:51). But it is not merely “spiritual” either. The poverty and hunger it speaks of are real, and the Church has drawn from it a real duty toward the poor (Redemptoris Mater 37; CCC 2448). Both sides must be kept.