The Bible and Music

Growing up in Catholic school I actually had to sing a version of The Magnificat in several of my classes. Needless to say I am very familiar with it. I do find it interesting how people can do so many different things with the piece in terms of composition. I wonder how the different compositions could be used to target audiences. For example the version I learned was in Latin. How would someone compose something to target a more contemporary audience? Or an audience that doesn’t have any experience with Latin?