Magna WHAT?

Help each of us, gracious God, to live in such magnanimity and restraint that the Head of the church may never have cause to say to anyone of us, “This is my body, broken by you.” Amen.

I hope you recognize that prayer. It’s in our official United Methodist Hymnal, and it’s from China.

And it has a word I don’t think I’ve used in conversation the last couple of days.

Maybe you haven’t either.

I didn’t say to son LJ4 how much I appreciated his magnanimity when he called me while going home from work.

The person at the phone store who answered my question with patient magnanimity? Didn’t mention that M Word to her either.

And yet this has us pray that our lives would evidence magnanimity.

Why didn’t the editors of our hymnal simply use an everyday word like generosity or kindness rather than magnanimity?

Okay. We’ve reviewed what it means, and even kinda complained about it. So

when will we start doing our parts to live both out of, and into, what it says and what it means?

Help each of us, gracious God, to live in such magnanimity and restraint that the Head of the church may never have cause to say to anyone of us, “This is my body, broken by you.” Amen.