Sermon Summary
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
• How can we apply and experience the two parts of this statement made by our mother the Virgin Mary and take them into the New Year?
3 ways to magnify the Name of the Lord:
1- Through your words and speech
2- By your hard work and your success
3- By your acts of service
2 ways to experience continual rejoicing
1- Understand what salvation is and what Christ did for you
2- Practice the Holy Sacraments
2 practices for the New Year, 2020:
1- Use this statement as your motto for the year: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” – placing it before you every day
2- Read a chapter in the Book of Proverbs every day – you will end up reading it 12 times over
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One God. Amen. May His grace and mercy rest upon us from now and forevermore. Amen.
I wish all of you a happy New Year as we gather here together in the Kiahk Tasbeha Praises – all the young men and women who have come from many different patriarchates from all across Egypt, all the priest fathers, and the youth choir.
For several years now we have been having this youth gathering at the end of the year, as young people coming together and looking forward to the New Year, 2020 – we look forward to a new year and to a new life. And one of the best things we can do at the beginning of a year is to put before us an example and an experience to emulate, this example is our mother the Virgin Mary whom we have been speaking of from the very beginning of tonight’s Tasbeha Praise, calling her “the pride of our race,” and praising her for her many characteristics, and so we can place her before us as a living example.
But even more important than to just simply place her before us as an example of a life well-lived and to talk about her, I want you to actually learn from our mother the Virgin Mary. “But,” you may say, “I am a young man, what can I learn from our mother the Virgin Mary?” Or a young woman here may say, “As a young woman living in this day and age, what can I learn from her? Our mother the Virgin lived in the 1st Century A.D.”
Yes, our mother the Virgin Mary lived even before the birth of Christ and so she is from Old Testament times but she is also in the New Testament, so she is, as it were, a bridge linking between the Old and New Testaments. And so although you may wonder, “What can we benefit from our mother the Virgin who lived 20 centuries ago?” I will tell you the answer to this question and it comes from the mouth of our mother the Virgin herself.
The 4 Sundays of Kiahk
During the first Sunday of Kiahk we meet with Elizabeth and Zechariah, to whom the angel appeared and promised a child – John the Baptist, the greatest born among women (cf. Mt 11:11) – and this promise came true.
On the second Sunday of Kiahk we meet with our mother the Virgin Mary – the young, poor, orphan girl who lived in the temple, and how the angel came to her and gave her the announcement, which was of course a very strange thing to hear, but her response, ultimately, was, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), as if to say, “I have no will or power of my own in this matter.”
On the third Sunday of Kiahk, and this is very beautiful, we see the young Virgin Mary (who represents the New Testament) meeting with the much older woman, Elizabeth (who represents the Old Testament). And so the Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth met as two individual women, but in reality it was the meeting of two Testaments – the Old Testament and the New Testament, or as you may have heard it described as, “a meeting of giving and receiving,” or passing something along.
On the fourth Sunday we meet with John the Baptist and we see how the promise that was made on the first Sunday was fulfilled on the forth Sunday, and directly after that we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and His incarnation.
How can the Virgin Mary’s life be an example for us today?
And so going back to the question of “how can our mother the Virgin’s life and example be of help to us today?” – I will tell you. When our mother the Virgin Mary met with Elizabeth she was praying and in her prayer she said a very beautiful praise, and this praise was inspired from the Old Testament praise that Hannah the mother of the prophet Samuel had said (1 Samuel 2).
And so let us pause together at the first statement that our mother began her praise with, and I know you all have it memorized: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” (Lk 1:46-47). This introduction is all at once an experience, a motto, and a practice that would be suitable for any one of us to practice, so let us enter into the New Year with this practice: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
Repeat it silently to yourself: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Our mother the Virgin is giving us this experience in order that we too may experience it and live our entire lives experiencing it, and so allow me to explain to you how we can all have this experience.
This praise is composed of two statements:
1-“My soul magnifies the Lord,” and
2-“My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
The first part: “My soul magnifies the Lord.”
What does this statement mean? Very simply, it means that the Lord Jesus Christ be first and foremost in your life, that all the glory be given to Him and that He be given first place. Also, “My soul magnifies the Lord” means that I place the Lord at the beginning of any work I do, for example, when you pray the Baker Prayer, it is as if you were saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” or when you pray the Sunset Vespers or the Compline (before going to sleep) Prayers you are saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” When you fast – “My soul magnifies the Lord,” and when you praise – “My soul magnifies the Lord.” And what does this mean? It means that your life within Church is not separate from your life outside Church.
3 ways to magnify the Name of the Lord:
1-Magnify the Name of the Lord with your words and your speech
Most of you are university students studying at different universities, and you study and work very hard. The first way you can magnify the Lord is with your words and your speech, the words that come out of your mouth. I wonder, do the words that come out of your mouth magnify the Name of the Lord, or do unsuitable and inappropriate words also sometimes come out of your mouth? And so the first thing you can practice is to make your words magnify the Lord – to magnify Him, to make His Name great, to bring Him glory.
When you speak to one another in your colleges and universities, do you speak rightly or do the words you say give off an unpleasant aroma? Or do your words hint at impure things? Or do the things you say sometimes hurt others? Or do you sometimes speak words of gossip about others? What do your words and speech look like? And so the first way you can bring glory to God is through your words and what comes out of your mouth.
And notice that in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew Chapter 5-7) Christ taught us that if a person said just one word of four letters, it could place distance between him and heaven and he will be deserving of hell fire. Just a single word! “Fool” (Mt 5:22).
The word “fool” is made up of just four letters, a very small word, but it can truly hurt and kill a person on the inside. When you are online on the Internet, beware that you never write a word to hurt someone. Do not ever speak a word that could hurt or kill another person or else how will your soul magnify the Lord? And so this is the first point.
2-Magnify the Name of the Lord with your hard work and success
As a son of God or a daughter of Christ, how can you bring glory to the Name of God through your studies, through your hard work and perseverance, and through your success? The Virgin Mary never went to university and she may have not ever had to study the way we do today, but you, do not ever take your studies lightly.
The progress in the world today demands people who are very successful, very successful, and this is the competition that is going on in the world, between all the people in the world. I was in America almost a year ago and I met a man who owns a very large business, a very large American company. This company was seeking to hire people for their IT department – 200 people applied but only 8 were hired. When I asked him why they hired only 8 people he said that only 8 people were actually qualified to do the work.
And so I ask you: Are you hard working, persevering, successful? And you say, “Oh, you know how tough it is – the education system and professors and the university system and traffic!” And I would say to you, yes, I know, but your personal hard work is what will help you advance and succeed in society and in your community, and in this way you will bring glory to the Name of the Lord, by your hard work and success.
3-Magnify the Name of the Lord through your acts of service
Serve, and learn to serve. It is to be assumed that we are all servants, and yes, while the ways of serving are many and the responsibilities differ, but for you to serve and be a servant means that you are a person who is going beyond selfishness. And let me tell you this secret: A selfish person has no place in society, no place in the community.
A selfish person is a person who lives for themselves and their own needs, but the more that a person goes outside himself and reaches towards others in this great big world, he will be able to bring glory to the Name of God, and you do this through your acts of service.
You are not in need of my giving you examples of good servants but a man like Dr. Magdi Yacoub, just for example, he was once a student like you being educated in an Egyptian university. He worked hard, travelled abroad, and his star shone very brightly. And he came to discover that his work could bring glory to God and to magnify the Name of God, and so he returned to Egypt and built a hospital, and not in Cairo but in Aswan, a very uncommon place [to build a hospital], and he began to serve there and to train others too. He is just one example and there are so many other examples like him.
And so you have these 3 before you:
1-Magnify the Name of God with you words and your speech
2-Magnify the Name of God with your hard work and your success
3-Magnify the Name of God with your service and hard work for the sake of others
That was the first part: “My soul magnifies the Lord.”
The second part is: “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
The second part: “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
Pay attention to the word “rejoiced.” Rejoicing is a very elegant emotion, a refined form of joy. It is not the kind of joy a person feels for five or so minutes when he hears some good news, no, but rejoicing is a state of being, a state that we can all experience and abide in.
And notice that the Virgin Mary says, “My Spirit,” so this rejoicing comes from within one’s depths, and this rejoicing is based on God the Savior, upon Jesus the Savior, upon the cross. And this is why day and night the Church talks to us about the cross, and continually talks to us about the importance of forming a strong relationship with Christ.
And you may say to me, “But I am busy and I have so much studying to do and you know how it is with exams. And then I will get a job and the job will take up a lot of my time, and I may even have to work two jobs!” Yes, all this may be true, but beware: Nothing will make your heart rejoice except the joy of salvation, which is the key to happiness.
We are all looking for the key to happiness for our lives. One person looks for it in money, another person looks for it in education, another looks for it in position and prestige, another looks for it in having a family – people are looking for happiness in so many ways, but the true happiness and true rejoicing that can actually abide within you come from the joy of salvation.
1-What is salvation?
It means Christ who came, incarnated, and was crucified for my sake and yours, who was lifted up on the cross and died on the cross, who died on the cross and then resurrected so that He may grant me this joy, this rejoicing, and why? Because Christ is the only One who came to wipe out my sin. Nobody else has this ability, and that is why He is called “the Messiah” (Note: the word “Messiah” in Arabic also means “One who wipes”) – because He wipes out sin. He is the One who is able to wipe away sin and to forgive me my sins, and in this way He relieves a person of the grip of the inner conscience.
2-Practice the Holy Sacraments
We all need the gladness of salvation. Our mother the Virgin says, “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Young men, young women, know that every time you pray you are attaining the joyfulness of salvation, every time you confess and practice the sacrament of repentance you are attaining the joyfulness of salvation, every time you come forth to the Sacraments and receive Holy Communion and feel the Presence of Christ within you – abiding in you and you abiding in Him – you are attaining the joyfulness of salvation.
I feel very sad and sorry when I meet a young man or a young woman and they have some measure of sorrow or some measure of depression, some anxiety or some uncertainty – an unstable personality, but as for the person who lives with Christ, that person continually abides in the joyfulness of salvation.
2 practices for the New Year, 2020:
1-Your motto for 2020: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
If I were to ask you whether our mother the Virgin had a personality or not, you would say that of course she did. Okay, so what was her personality like? What was it based upon? It was based on two things: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
And that is why my dear young people, as we approach the New Year, which will begin in just a few days, if you want to choose a motto to place before yourself, and to try to apply it to yourself and to contemplate it, to write and place it before you to see every day, let it be this: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
Even today, our mother the Virgin is still our teacher and our example and our pattern, and she offers us this experience as a life experience, an experience that we can begin the New Year with and to rejoice in throughout this New Year – “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
2-Read a chapter in the Book of Proverbs every day
The last thing I want to tell you is that we are beginning 2020 – the number 20. The 20th Book in the Holy Bible is the Book of Proverbs and they call this book “the school of life.” And so take this nice exercise in addition to the motto we chose for the New Year and begin to read from the Book of Proverbs every day, in addition to your other Bible readings or any other readings you have agreed upon with your father of confession.
The Book of Proverbs consists of 31 chapters and so you can read a chapter a day throughout each month, reading the chapter for that day. For example, if today is the 6th of the month then read the 6th Chapter, if today is the 17th then read the 17th chapter, if today is the 29th then read the 29th chapter, and so on, and when you finish the month, start to read it again from the beginning. If you continue in this practice throughout the coming year you will have read the Book of Proverbs 12 times.
And an advantage of the Book of Proverbs is that it is not a story, so its chapters are not related to one other, and so suppose there was a day you were lazy or forgot to read or were too busy, no problem, just pick up your reading on the following day according to the chapter for that day, but the important thing is what? Is that as you are reading it you are picking up on principles for your life, to learn as if you were enrolled in a school called “the school of the Book of Proverbs,” or “the school of life.” And so try to learn as many experiences [and principles] from this book by which you can build up your personality, that you may have a strong personality in society.
You are learning and getting an education in your college or university? Very well. You have your personal readings? Wonderful. But what is important is that your character be one of presence, and the Book of Proverbs will help you greatly in this.
I wish you blessings and may it be a happy new year for all of you, and let us remember that when our mother the Virgin says, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” we also can magnify and bring glory to the Name of God through our words, through our hard work, and through our acts of service.
And let us remember that when she said, “And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,” that as we practice and participate in all the channels of grace offered to us through the Church and the Holy Sacraments, we too can experience this continual filling of the rejoicing of salvation.
May the Lord keep you and bless you. Happy new year to you.