There is something quite extraordinary about the words Mary speaks in today’s Gospel.

We have heard the Magnificat so many times that perhaps we no longer notice just how bold a prayer it is.

Think for a moment about who is saying it. Mary is young in a world that respected grey hair. Jewish in a pagan world. A woman in a patriarchal world. From Nazareth, a small and unimportant backwater on the edge of the Roman Empire. She is not wealthy. She has no position of authority, no public influence, no earthly power. She lives in a world where status and importance mattered enormously, and by all the usual measures of the time Mary is someone the wider world would barely notice.

And yet this young woman says, “From this day forward all generations will call me blessed.”

That is an extraordinary thing to say. She speaks about the proud being scattered, the mighty being brought down from their thrones, the lowly being lifted up and the hungry being filled with good things. These are enormous claims coming from someone who, by any worldly standard of the time, was a nobody.

Mary’s boldness and confidence, however, are not in herself but in God. In humility she calls herself his lowly servant, but in all honesty she says, “The Almighty has done great things for me.” That is the key to understanding Mary. She knows that she is small, but she also knows that God is great. She sees something which, at that moment, nobody else can fully see. She sees what God is doing. She trusts that God lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry, remembers his mercy and keeps his promises. And today, on the feast of her Assumption, we see just how right she was. The lowly handmaid of Nazareth has been lifted up.

Mary, who gave herself completely to God, who carried Jesus in her womb and who stood beside him at the Cross, now shares body and soul in the glory of her risen Son. That is what the Church means by the Assumption: at the end of her earthly life, Mary was taken body and soul into the glory of heaven. By a unique grace of God, she already shares bodily in the glory of the Resurrection which we hope one day to share.

Mary is the first and greatest disciple of her Son, and what God has done in her is therefore a sign of hope for all who belong to Christ. The Assumption is not simply a celebration of how wonderful Mary is. It is a celebration of what the grace of God can do in those who are united to Jesus the Saviour. And I think today there are three very simple responses we can make to Our Lady.

First, we honour her. Mary herself tells us where to look: “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Of course, Mary cannot make God greater than he already is. To magnify the Lord means that through her life his greatness becomes more visible. You look at Mary and you see what God has done. You marvel at Mary, and God is glorified. You honour Mary, and you honour the grace and work of God in her. That is why devotion to Our Lady never competes with devotion to Jesus. Mary does not draw attention away from her Son. Everything about her points towards him. St Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast we celebrated on Friday, had an extraordinary devotion to Our Lady, and he is famous for saying, “Don’t worry that you will love or honour the Virgin too much, for you will never be able to love or honour her more than her Son.”

But Mary is not only someone to honour. She is also someone to imitate. There is one lesson from Mary that I want to connect with what we have been reflecting on during August about the future of our Divine Mercy Partnership. Over the last few weeks we have spoken about vision, mission and strategy. We have begun asking what kind of parishes Christ is calling us to become and how we might begin moving towards that. But underneath all of those plans and ideas there has to be a spirituality. There has to be a way of seeing ourselves and what God is doing. And I cannot think of a better spirituality to underpin the vision of our Partnership than the spirituality of Mary: “My soul magnifies the Lord.”

Our ambition as a Partnership should never be to become impressive. We are not trying to build successful parishes so that people can look at us and say, “Look what they have achieved.” Our ambition should be the ambition of Mary. Mary knows that she is small, but she knows that God is great. She trusts what God can do through someone who says yes to him, and she wants her life to make his greatness visible. That is what we should want for our parishes.

If somebody who has been away from the Church for twenty years finds their way back to Christ, we magnify the Lord. If a family begins praying together and takes its faith seriously, we magnify the Lord. If a child grows up not simply having received the sacraments, but actually knowing and loving Jesus, we magnify the Lord. If somebody who thought there was no place for them in the Church encounters the mercy of God here, we magnify the Lord. That is ultimately what all the plans, all the strategies and all the things we may try have to be about. Not making a name for ourselves. Making Jesus Christ known and his name glorified. That is the kind of ambition Mary teaches us to have: not that people look at our parishes and say, “Look what they have achieved,” but that they look at what God is doing among us and say, “The Almighty has done great things.”

And finally, Mary is not only someone to honour and imitate. She is also our Mother, and so we entrust ourselves to her. The woman whom Jesus gave to us as Mother is not simply a figure from the past. She is alive in Christ. Today we celebrate that she has been assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven. She is Queen of Heaven, and there she continues to pray for the Church and for her children.

So today, on this beautiful feast, let us place ourselves under her maternal care.

Let us entrust to her our own lives: our worries and hopes, our weaknesses and failures, the decisions we have to make, the things which frighten us, and all those things which we carry quietly in our hearts.

Let us entrust to her our families: our husbands and wives, our parents and grandparents, our children and grandchildren; those families which are happy and strong, and those which are struggling or divided.

Let us entrust to her those whom we love who are sick, those who are lonely, those who are grieving, those who are struggling financially, and those who feel that they have nobody else to turn to.

Let us entrust to her our children and our young people. May she protect them, guide them and help them to know and love her Son.

Let us entrust to her those who have drifted away from the Church, those who no longer practise their faith, those who have been hurt by the Church, and those whom we have prayed for, sometimes for many years, asking Mary to lead them gently back to Jesus.

Let us entrust to her those who are searching for God, including those who will come to our Alpha course, those thinking about becoming Catholic, and those who perhaps do not yet realise that it is Christ for whom they are searching.

Let us entrust to her our parish schools: the children, their families, the teachers and staff, and the work we are trying to do together to help the next generation grow in faith.

Let us entrust to her those preparing for Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation, and the families we are trying to help become more deeply part of the life of the Church.

And let us entrust to her our whole Divine Mercy Partnership: St Anne’s, St Anthony’s and St John the Baptist; those who worship here every week, those who serve quietly and generously, our elderly and housebound, our volunteers, our staff, and all those people in our area whom Christ is calling us to reach. Let us entrust to her the plans we are making, the things we will try, the decisions we will have to make, the resources we need, and all the uncertainty of the years ahead.

We do not know exactly what that future will look like. But Mary teaches us to trust the God who keeps his promises and does great things through those who place themselves in his hands. So today we honour her. We try to imitate her. And we entrust ourselves to her maternal care.

Blessed Virgin Mary, assumed body and soul into heaven, Mother of the Church and Queen of Heaven, pray for us. Pray for our families. Pray for our parishes. Pray for our future. And lead us always to your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.