From Her opening words, Our Blessed Mother reminds us that true worship should be a very personal and profound thing, which implies not only outward praise and prayer, but also internal commitment, respect, and joy. God should be the center and purpose of our actions, of our thoughts, and of our lives. We must be as lamps which joyfully hold the brilliant spark of truth in our Faith and which burn brightly against the winds of a world, which grows, ever colder and darker.

    The New Order dislikes the intimate, one-on-one worship and praise, which Mary is talking about. It prefers a more publicly oriented, crowd-pleasing, hold hands and feel good religion. God Almighty magnifies our actions into results, which transcend those simple actions, and those actions themselves magnify the touch of God in the lives we touch while serving God and each other. When one thinks of magnification, a magnifying glass comes to mind. What does a magnifying glass do? It focuses and therefore increases the intensity of light to accomplish things not possible without such focus and magnification. Likewise, the mutual magnification between God Almighty and our actions, service, charity, and words in His Name focus and increase the intensity and therefore the power of what we can accomplish as a result as well.

    Our Faith is rich with such magnifying traditions, doctrines, and liturgy! The New Order, on the other hand, seeks to diffuse, to disperse, and to spread out our focus to reach "everyone". Christ is not focused in The Blessed Sacrament as The Real Presence according to The New Order. He is "everywhere" and in "everyone" therefore our focus and intensity is lost. Instead of focusing us on our true target, as a magnifying glass does, the New Order seeks to disperse and spread our focus so thin that we will lose our target and accomplish nothing of any value as a result.

    Here Mary speaks of humility, gratefulness, and thankfulness, which are key aspects of true Catholic faith, doctrine, tradition, and liturgy. God Almighty's blessings are so constant and bountiful that our gratefulness and thankfulness can never end and yet will never match God's generous love and mercy for us. In that vein, we must always honor and respect God Almighty through His Word, His Name, and His relevance in our lives.

    The New Order has no clue what humility, gratefulness, thankfulness, or submissiveness to the power and majesty of God means. Its message is one of arrogance, selfishness, assertiveness, and self-glorification. It delights in twisting the notion of God into any shape, which fits its motives and agenda. Certainly the respect for God and Christ decreases as the influence of The New Order increases. This is seen in liturgical and practice changes resulting from New Order philosophies.

    God Almighty's favor and mercy are ageless, and are not tied down to any of our earthly notions of merit, logic, or quantity, for if they were, we would be doomed! On the contrary, God's standards and justice are beyond our reasoning and understanding. The more we respect, obey, and fear the wrath of God, the more likely we will benefit from the Almighty's favor and mercy. The New Order delights in placing standards and limits on everything. It is enamored with precision, calculation, standardization, and justification on earthly terms. It cares little for agelessness but rather sees that characteristic as a handicap in an age ever-looking forward blind of the past.

    The New Order certainly does not fear or respect God as it should. One need only look at the abominations and blasphemies, which the New Order allows and encourages to see that this Order has lost its fear and respect for The Creator of The Universe.

    Mary reminds us that God's priorities differ from ours, and that He tends to magnify the results of humble expectations and diminish the results of arrogant, selfish expectations. Our true Catholic Faith is rich with calls for a humble sacrifice and approach to God. It has no place for selfishness or self-glorification. Once again our tradition and Faith is rich with examples of God's generous blessing of the lowly and humble over the proud, selfish and arrogant. The New Order thrives on pride, selfishness and arrogance in its disrespect for tradition and the past. Like the Pharisees it is full of self-righteous, pompous purveyors of false teachings and abominations.

    Mary respected, knew, and practiced tradition. She trusted in God's Word and in those who came before Her and who were chosen by God to lead His people in the true practice of their faith. The New Order detests tradition, everywhere seeks to overturn it, ignores or ridicules the Fathers of The Faith and trusts only in its own agenda.

Conclusion

    Our Blessed Mother's Magnificat is more than a beautiful song of praise and thanks uttered by The Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven. It is Her answer, and should be ours, to a New World Order either secular or ecclesial which stands for everything the Magnificat is not about. Its beautiful yet simple words and phrases sing a song, which has never been, and will never be, in the jukebox of The New Order. The more we allow that Order to infect our Faith, the less we will connect with the truths found in the Magnificat, which single-handedly illustrates why Mary and The New Order do not, and cannot, mix.

Editor's Note: We are pleased to announce Gabriel Garnica will be contributing many articles in 2004. Heaven is once again under attack by those who would seek to ignore and overthrow God's majesty and authority. Gabriel Garnica, educator and attorney, will submit regular insights and commentaries to remind and help guide readers toward a deeper and more assertive faith. Touching on topics and issues ranging from personal faith, doctrine, education, scripture, the media, family life, morality, and values, Gabriel's notes will be music to tradtional ears but unpleasant tones to those who have bought into the misguided notions so prevalent and spreading in today's Catholic world.

For Gabriel's past columns, see ARCHIVES of Gabriel's Clarion