Magnifying the Lord

"My soul magnifies the Lord" (Luke 1:46).  This does not mean that we can add anything to God, Saint Ambrose says, in commenting on this verse, but that we let him be great in us.  To magnify the Lord means, not to want to magnify ourselves, our own name, our own ego; not to spread ourselves and take up more space, but to give him room so that he may be more present in the world.  It means to become more truly what we are:  not a self-enclosed monad that displays nothing but itself, but God's image.  It means to get free of the dust and soot that obscures and begrimes the transparency of the image and to become truly human by pointing exclusively to him.

~Pope Benedict XVI in Mary, the Church at the Source by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar