My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum,
et exsultávit spíritus meus
in Deo salvatóre meo,
quia respéxit humilitátem
ancíllæ suæ.
Ecce enim ex hoc beátam
me dicent omnes generatiónes,
quia fecit mihi magna,
qui potens est,
et sanctum nomen eius,
et misericórdia eius in progénies
et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fecit poténtiam in bráchio suo,
dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui;
depósuit poténtes de sede
et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis
et dívites dimísit inánes.
Suscépit Ísrael púerum suum,
recordátus misericórdiæ,
sicut locútus est ad patres nostros,
Ábraham et sémini eius in sæcula.
Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio,
et nunc et semper,
et in sæcula sæculórum.
Amen.
She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.
(Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, vol. 21, 326)
Unlike modern Protestants, Luther did not shy away from using the term, “Mother of God,” and he was fully cognizant of its correct usage. He succinctly analyzes the Nestorian heresy, and concludes that Nestorius:
Insisted on the literal meaning of the words, “God born of Mary,” and interpreted “born” according to grammar or philosophy, as though it meant to obtain divine nature from the one who bore him, … We too know very well that God did not derive his divinity from Mary; but it does not follow that it is therefore wrong to say that God was born of Mary, that God is Mary’s Son, and that Mary is God’s mother. [18]
Throughout his career, one finds Luther expressing not only the rich Christ- centered usage of Theotokos when discussing the incarnation or Christ’s Deity, but he also uses the term simply as a synonym for Mary, which was common in sixteenth century Western Christendom.[19] In a Table Talk entry from 1542, one finds Luther using the title as a mode of exclamation, “O Mary, mother of God!”[20] This is not to suggest that Luther did not think of Mary as particularly special. To the contrary, Luther was to call her “Mother of God, exalted above all mortals”[21] when he considered she was given the great gift of being mother to the Messiah.
Luther though shifts the emphasis back to God: “She does not desire herself to be esteemed; she magnifies God alone and gives all glory to Him. She leaves herself out and ascribes everything to God alone, from whom she received it.”[22] For Mary to be exalted, was actually for her to “magnify God alone, to count only Him great and lay claim to nothing.”[23] As Heiko Oberman points out, when Luther uses the term “Theotokos,” “There is indeed little chance that Mary can become the thing signified rather than the sign.”[24] Mary, serving as the sign pointing to Christ, was to say: “I am but the workshop in which He performs His work; I had nothing to do with the work itself. No one should praise me or give me the glory for becoming the Mother of God, but God alone and His work are to be honored and praised in me.”[25]
He also compounds the term with “blessed”: “most blessed Mother of God,”[26] or “Blessed Virgin, Mother of God.”[27] Even in the usage of “blessed” though, Luther shifts the emphasis away from Mary and back to God. He explains that Mary thought herself “blessed” because God “regarded” her; that is, God turned His face toward her and gave grace and salvation, as he likewise did when He chose to give grace to Abel, rather than Cain. He explains, “But for this one thing alone, that God regarded her, men will call her blessed. That is to give all the glory to God as completely as it can be done… Not she is praised thereby, but God’s grace toward her.”[28] Luther sees this “regarding” as God’s bestowal of grace in choosing His children unto salvation and sanctification: “For where it comes to pass that God turns His face toward one to regard him, there is nothing but grace and salvation, and all gifts and works must follow.” [29]
(http://tquid.sharpens.org/luther_mary1.htm#III
Take note of this: no one should put his trust or confidence in the Mother of God or in her merits, for such trust is worthy of God alone and is the lofty service due only to him. Rather praise and thank God through Mary and the grace given her. Laud and love her simply as the one who, without merit, obtained such blessings from God, sheerly out of his mercy, as she herself testifies in the Magnificat. (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 43:10.)