The song that Luke puts in Mary’s mouth when she visits Elizabeth speaks of a God who had “deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places.” Mary herself is a prime example of the lowly raised to high places: a poor and simple girl, a virgin from an insignificant part of the world, raised to the status of Mother of God, and today “raised body and soul to the glory of heaven.”

There is an attractiveness about God raising the lowly that makes it pleasing for us to accept, at least theoretically. We react positively to the raising of a Mother Theresa from the status of lowly servant of the hopeless to that of Nobel Peace Prize winner. We are less attracted to the idea of God deposing the mighty from their thrones, especially if we live in the “First World” and in the country that boasts of being first in the world.

Mary said: “The hungry he has given every good thing, while the rich he has sent empty away.” This should come as good news to the poor, and should be of some concern to affluent Americans, who belong to the richest five percent of the world’s population.

Let the entire body of the faithful pour forth persevering prayer to the Mother of God and Mother of men. Let them implore that she who aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers may now, exalted as she is in heaven above all the saints and angels, intercede with her Son in the fellowship of all the saints.”

Vatican II, Constitution on the Church 1964:69