MAGNIFICAT MAGAZINE - US - SUBSCRIPTION

Review

**SECTION ONE — Bookstore recommendation** Every morning, before the news cycle begins, several million Catholics open the same slender booklet to pray the same psalm. That shared act is what Magnificat Magazine is designed to make possible. Published monthly, the magazine gathers the full daily Mass readings, morning and evening prayer drawn from the Liturgy of the Hours, a short meditation for each day, and brief accounts of the saints whose feasts fall that month -- all arranged so that a reader with fifteen minutes and no liturgical training can pray in step with the universal Church. The format was developed by Fr. Pierre-Marie Dumont in France in 1992 and brought to the American market by EWTN's publishing arm; the U.S. edition now reaches well over one million subscribers. The intended reader is any Catholic who wants their private prayer anchored to the Church's public worship rather than constructed from scratch each morning. It is less a book to read through than a daily companion to return to, and that distinction is precisely its purpose. **SECTION TWO — Catholic anthropological reading** - **Created**: The magazine's organizing act -- praying Mary's Magnificat as part of Vespers each evening -- affirms the imago Dei by placing the human person within a relationship of praise. The canticle declares that God 'has looked on his servant in her lowliness' (Lk 1:48), a recognition that the person's dignity is received, not self-constructed. Each daily cycle reinforces this truth at the level of bodily habit: a set time, a physical booklet, a spoken or sung text. - **Fallen**: The liturgical calendar the magazine follows is structured around fasting seasons, penitential rites, and the frank acknowledgment of human dependency embedded in the Psalms. The Psalms of lament in particular -- cries of abandonment, confusion, and sin -- name the disordered condition of the person without aestheticizing it. The reader is not reassured that everything is fine but is instead given words for what is broken. - **Redeemed**: The magazine's daily movement from Mass readings to prayer to the lives of the saints traces the arc of redemption concretely: Scripture read, Word received in the Eucharist, transformed life witnessed in the saints. This mirrors the Thomistic understanding that grace does not bypass nature but elevates it through ordered encounter. - **Justice (adoration)**: Every evening prayer in the magazine closes with the Magnificat canticle itself, the prayer in which Mary models what Aquinas calls latria -- the worship owed to God alone. The repetition over months conditions the reader's affective response: adoration becomes a trained posture rather than an occasional mood. **SECTION THREE — Conversation with the canon** John Paul II[^1], in *Redemptoris Mater*, writes that the Magnificat 'ceaselessly re-echoes in the heart of the Church down the centuries,' proved by its daily recitation at Vespers -- which is precisely the liturgical structure Magnificat Magazine delivers to its readers each month.[^1] In *Ecclesia de Eucharistia*, John Paul II[^2] draws a direct line between the Eucharistic attitude and the Magnificat, arguing that both are 'first and foremost praise and thanksgiving' and that 'our life, like that of Mary, may become completely a Magnificat' -- a vision the magazine's daily format enacts at the level of routine rather than aspiration.[^2] Benedict XVI[^3], in *Deus Caritas Est*, describes the Magnificat as 'a portrait of Mary's soul' woven entirely from Scripture, showing how Mary 'speaks and thinks with the Word of God'; a subscription to Magnificat is, in practical terms, a structured method for acquiring the same Scripture-saturated interiority over time.[^3] ## References [^1]: John Paul II. (1987). *Redemptoris Mater*. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Section 36. [^2]: John Paul II. (2003). *Ecclesia de Eucharistia*. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Section 58. [^3]: Benedict XVI. (2005). *Deus Caritas Est*. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Section 41.

✓ Strengths

• ✓Magnificat orders the reader's daily life around the Liturgy of the Hours, the Mass readings, and the lives of the saints, giving worship a concrete structure rather than leaving piety to improvisation.
• ✓Each issue incorporates the Psalms, the Magnificat canticle itself, and the full cycle of liturgical feasts, training the reader's memory in the Church's own prayer vocabulary over months and years.
• ✓The magazine's format -- daily morning and evening prayer alongside the Mass -- embodies the Thomistic understanding that virtue is formed through repeated, ordered acts rather than sporadic intentions.
• ✓By placing Mary's Magnificat at the center of its identity, the publication orients every reader toward the disposition Benedict XVI describes in Deus Caritas Est: self-forgetfulness before God, attention to neighbor, and hope grounded in God's promises.
• ✓The monthly subscription model sustains a continuous, cumulative formation rather than a one-time encounter, functioning as a habit-building tool consistent with Aquinas's teaching on the role of repeated acts in building stable dispositions.

⚠ Considerations

• ⚠Because the publication offers no theological commentary on contested questions and no integration of psychological or counseling material, it functions primarily as a devotional aid rather than a resource for readers in active emotional crisis or in need of clinical-level accompaniment.