On August 15, the church celebrates the Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin. This is the traditional date of her Assumption, bodily taken up to heaven. Mary, the mother of Christ, has been celebrated since the earliest days of the Christian church though there was no scriptural basis for the assumption and grew upon writings from the 4th century. The iconography of the eastern church (to the right) always showed Mary with Child as the mother of the deity though in the West she is pictured alone.
The Gospel of Luke contains a “Song of Praise” that was sung by Mary when her cousin Elizabeth recognized her as the mother of the Lord (Luke 1:43). Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist when her cousin Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus, came to see her.
Mary’s Song of Praise (The Magnficat)
"My soul magnifes the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
"Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me,and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm;
"he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has flled the hungry with good things,
"and sent the rich away empty. 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 for ever. (Luke 1:46-55)
This Feast Day comes a day after that for Jonathan M. Daniel
The Magnificat which held special meaning for Daniels. Just after the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, March 7. He wrote the following:
"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary’s glad song. "He hath showed strength with his arm." As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled "moment" that would, in retrospect, remind me of others–particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things." I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.
Mary’s song is one where a young girl rejoices that despite being lowly "the humble and meek" she will be have a part of redeeming mankind. She understands that she is now personally caught up in the larger story of God acting on God’s passion for the plight of the weak, the hungry, the oppressed, the lowly. She is now to be a partner in God’s work of liberation and redemption. She knows that God consistently uses the least likely, the least powerful, to be instruments of God’s will.
Daniels’ life showed a pattern of putting himself in the place of others who were defenseless and in need. The pattern was evident even at VMI, where as an upperclassman he was known to have compassion on and defend first-year cadets as they endured the brutal hazing of the VMI “Rat Line.” During seminary he went beyond the call of duty in his field work study in Providence RI he gave up his entire weekend to tutor black children.
His decision to go to Selma, though it perhaps took some people by surprise, was really just his compassion expanding in a greater circle. When the initial fervor of the Selma marches faded and most of the white northerners had returned to the safety and routines of their homes, Jonathan looked at the local poor black activists still fighting and risking their livelihoods and lives, and realized he could not abandon them.