R is for Rejoicing

fresco of Mary and Elizabeth at Mua Mission, Malawi, Africa

That touches a second, deeper aspect of life. As Luther praises Mary, cautions his prince and diagnoses human sin, he looks beyond humility or lack of it to the person's corresponding attitude toward God. Mary's singing, "My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior," "teaches us to love and praise God for Himself alone . . . and not selfishly to seek anything at his hands. This is done when one praises God because He is good, regards only His bare goodness, and finds his joy and pleasure in that alone. That is a lofty, pure and tender mode of loving and praising God and well becomes this Virgin's high and tender spirit. But the impure and perverted lovers, who are nothing else than parasites, and who seek their own advantage in God, neither love nor praise His bare goodness, but have an eye to themselves and consider only how good God is to them, that is, how deeply He makes them feel His goodness and how many good things He does to them. They . . . are filled with joy and sing His praises, so long as this feeling continues. But just as soon as He hides His face and withdraws the rays of His goodness, leaving them bare and in misery, their love and praise are at an end. They are unable to love and praise the bare, unfelt goodness that is hidden in God. By this they prove that . . . they had no true love and praise for His bare goodness."

This is lack of faith. To trust God to be good only when we feel God's goodness but then when we do not feel it "to despair as though God were angry with us" is no trust at all. "It is because of our lack of faith that we cannot wait a little, until the time comes when we, too, shall see how the mercy of God together with all His might is with those who fear Him."