The soul of Mary magnifies the Lord because she herself is magnified by the Lord. For unless she were first magnified by the Lord, Mary's soul could not magnify the Lord. Therefore she magnifies him by whom she is magnified, magnifies him not only by the speech of her lips, not only by the holiness of her body, but the unequaled quality of her love...
How do you magnify him? Do you make greater him whose magnificence has no end? Great is the Lord, says the Psalmist, and greatly to be praised. Great he is, and so great that his greatness has neither comparison nor measure. How then do you magnify one whom you cannot from small make great nor from great greater? But you magnify because you praise, you magnify because amid the darkness of the world, being brighter than the sun, lovelier than the moon, more fragrant than the rose, whiter than snow, you spread abroad the splendor of the knowledge of God. You magnify him therefore not by increasing his surpassing greatness but by bringing the unknown radiance of the true deity to the world's darkness...
Your soul stretches so far through its longing for love that it reaches the very word of God. For you are Moses' basket, you are the vessel containing the Word, you are the storehouse of the new wine by which the soberness of believers becomes inebriated. You are the Mother of God, the limit set to sin, by whom men rise from the depths of vice and reach the delights of angels.
--Fr. Adam of Perseigne (died c. 1221) was an abbot in a monastery in France and a counselor to nuns, priests, and kings.
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