My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior for he has remembered his promise of mercy. Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat as it is popularly known, not only shows the kind of an individual Mary was, but also the kind of household she was brought up in. It is a song that can be said to have been well ‘beyond’ her years. It is a hymn that celebrates the history of God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, and is patterned after the other great hymns found throughout the Old Testament (the song of victory by Moses and the Israelites [cf. Exodus 15:1-18], Tobit’s song of praise [cf. Tobit 13:1-17], Zechariah’s Benedictus [cf. Luke 1:67-79], and of course Hannah’s song of praise that has been used as our responsorial psalm of today [cf. 2 Samuel 1-10]). Only one who was familiar with the Hebrew Scripture as well as the history of the Hebrew people would have the required disposition and know-how to come up with such a rich hymn.  
In the hymn, Mary demonstrates the maturity of her faith as well as the kind of person that she is. She is aware that her ‘salvation’ is tied to that of the larger community, the nation of Israel. She sees her being blessed and favored by God as a fulfillment of God’s promises to her people. To Mary, what God has done in both her life and that of her cousin Elizabeth is a demonstration of God’s fidelity and commitment to the promises made to Abraham and the patriarchs. To Mary, what God has done to her is not limited to her, and it was not just about her. God had done this to humanity and she was happy to have been chosen to play such a central role.