"Calling Mary's
canticle "the oldest Advent hymn", Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian
who was killed by the Nazis said:"
'It is at once the most passionate, the
wildest, one might even say
the most revolutionary Advent hymn every
sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in
paintings; this is
the passionate, surrendered, proud,
enthusiastic Mary who speaks
out here. This song has none of the sweet,
nostalgic, or even playful
tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is
instead a hard, strong,
inexorable song about collapsing thrones and
humbled lords of this
world, about the power of God and the
powerlessness of humankind.
These are the tones of the women prophets of
the Old Testament
that now come to life in Mary's
mouth.'
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