Introduction
In the days of St Dunstan (r. 959-988), Archbishop of Canterbury to King Ethelred the Unready, over in Greece an otherwise comfortably obscure fellow monk – we still do not know his name – was entertaining a guest of even greater royalty.
‘MY soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour.’
With these words, St Luke tells us, the Virgin Mary began a hymn of thanksgiving for the coming birth of her son, Jesus.*
There are nine more verses, and after each one it is customary to add,
‘Greater in honour than the cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim, without corruption thou gavest birth to God the Word: Truly the Theotókos,* we magnify thee.’
At daybreak one Sunday morning in 982,* a monk on Mount Athos could be heard chanting these very words, before an icon of Mary. At his side, taking it in turns to sing, was another monk – not his own elder, who had left him alone for a night and gone to nearby Karyes, but a visitor, a total stranger who had knocked on his door in the small hours and introduced himself as Monk Gabriel.
See Luke 1:39-56. Mary’s song, spoken spontaneously to her cousin Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist), is a clever adaptation of the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1-10. Hannah was another woman granted a miraculous child, the prophet Samuel. The Song is widely known by its first word in Latin translation, ‘Magnificat’.
Roughly, ‘God’s birth-giver’, a popular title for Mary, recognised by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Some senior clergy tried to ban it, as they found the idea of the Son of God undergoing embryonic transformation and the gritty realities of birthing inappropriate. However, as the fourth-century hymn ‘Te Deum laudamus’ says, ‘When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb’. See our post How St Euphemia Saved Christmas.
Précis
In 982, on Mount Athos in Greece, a monk had been expecting to say his morning prayers alone, but was joined during the night by a stranger calling himself Monk Gabriel. They began singing the service, taking turns to chant the Virgin Mary’s song, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’. (50 / 60 words)
In 982, on Mount Athos in Greece, a monk had been expecting to say his morning prayers alone, but was joined during the night by a stranger calling himself Monk Gabriel. They began singing the service, taking turns to chant the Virgin Mary’s song, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 45 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, may, must, otherwise, since, unless, until, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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