Tuesday, December 22, 2026 — Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent
The Magnificat
Luke 1:46-56
Readings of the day: 1 Samuel 1:24-28; 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd; Luke 1:46-56.
The Gospel
Mary sings her song of praise: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” God has looked upon her lowliness, and all generations will call her blessed. He has done great things for her, and holy is his name. His mercy reaches from generation to generation; he scatters the proud, casts down the mighty and lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty. He has come to the help of Israel, remembering his promise of mercy to Abraham. Mary stays with Elizabeth about three months, then returns home.
Reflection
Mary’s song begins with lowliness and ends with a promise kept for a thousand years. “The lowliness of Mary was made the heavenly ladder, by which God descended upon earth,” says St. Augustine, and Bede adds that God’s mercy is not for Mary alone: “in every nation he that feareth God is accepted by Him.” God reverses the world’s order: the proud are scattered, the mighty are cast down, the hungry are filled. To sing the Magnificat is to see your own small life inside God’s great mercy, and to trust that the promise made to Abraham is still being kept, in you, today.
From the Fathers
“The lowliness of Mary was made the heavenly ladder, by which God descended upon earth.”
— St. Augustine, Sermon on the Assumption, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 1:48
“Not only for me hath He that is mighty done great things, but in every nation he that feareth God is accepted by Him.”
— St. Bede the Venerable, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 1:50
Saint of the day
Saint Flavian of Rome, a former prefect of the city and a martyr under the emperor Julian the Apostate. Stripped of his office, branded on the forehead and exiled to Aquae Taurinae (Acquapendente) for refusing to deny Christ, he died there in prayer in 363. He was the husband of St. Dafrosa and the father of the virgin martyrs St. Bibiana and St. Demetria. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on this day.
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Sources: the day’s readings follow the daily lectionary (USCCB, Lectionary 198). The Gospel text is not reproduced here; read it at the link above. Patristic quotes: Catena Aurea on Luke 1:46–56, compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by John Henry Newman (1841, public domain).