Mary The Woman

The Good News for the Day, October 8, 2022

Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time (466)

The Gospel                                               

Once, while Jesus was in the middle of a talk, some woman from a crowd called out, “How happy is the womb that carried you and the breasts that nursed you.”

He responded, “Rather, how better off are those who hear the word of God and follow it.” (Luke 11)

Reflections of the Word of Jesus

Let us for a moment set aside “Our Blessed Mother” and “Our Lady” and “Mother of God.” These are titles which history has bestowed on this woman. Certainly, they signify that something about her as an individual connected with Jesus was important! And history has proved that she has become significant in many lives.

Four a change, let us consider to notice the individual real person, Mary. Let us look at her, as it were from the inside. Let us consider the character from the events of her life.

The Mother of the Newborn and Growing Boy

She gave birth to a baby boy whom she nursed and loved. The baby was helpless, and she surely worried about Him when He coughed at night, had diarrhea, got lost in the temple when He was 12, when He went alone into the fields with the sheep.

Maybe she worried about Him when He walked the short 12 miles over to the important city of Sephora . There He almost certainly worked with His father on this administrative center. It had been destroyed and was being rebuilt about when Jesus was a young person.

At Nazareth

In his hometown, Jesus worked with others and was kind. Because because He was kind, did she worry that he was bullied? Did she hurt when she saw Him depressed?

Almost certainly he was different even as a teenager. People didn’t understand him. In her heart, was she concerned that His difference would lead Him into a world of loneliness and opposition? Mothers worry about such things

Mother and Son

Then – did she listen when Jesus started talking to her – to her – about His understanding of faith? What did they say when she was teaching Him his Torah and other Hebrew Scriptures? She learned from Him, and he learned from her. Probably. He grew, we are told, in wisdom – that comes by conversation with others. It seems probable that both grew by their exchanges. He asked questions – and, later on, she asked questions.

The Growth of Mary in Wisdom

Did she grasp – ever so slowly– how the faith he understood is more important than blood relationship? When did she discover how much the Family of God – including her Son – mean? He learned the Hebrew lessons well, because they loved one another. Did she, however, have difficulty conveying her beloved Hebrew tradition to him – that they sometimes have different viewpoints, although the core belief remain the same? Did they laugh when one discovered something to share with the other?

Mary at the Cross

Later, the sword will pierce her heart, seeing her Son executed publicly for treason.

He suffered the death penalty. Perhaps, for all the later generations she considered the injustice of a death penalty for anyone, but especially for those convicted when innocent. Perhaps to she thought , too, of people killing one another in battle, and in families, in inexplicable rages and for insane religious or political reasons. Perhaps she considered the horror of religious oppression against thoughtful generous people like her Son.

The Importance Here

This this public incident of the difference between His family and Jesus focuses us. Jesus and Mary loved one another, and have faith in one another. And perhaps both grow to understand what this incident emphasizes. In this incident, we are reminded love, and doing the word of God are more important than blood. It is how their common humanity – both of – grew in wisdom and age and grace.

But the important thing for you and me – and her – is faith. Perhaps, with faith, you and I can more greatly appreciate our parents. We can see them as struggling fellow children of God, rather than the flawed individuals you and I might judge them to be.

Faith, this incident reminds us, is not so much assent to a doctrine as hearing and doing the word of God. Faith is living with the living, growing Jesus as Mary did. We look for Jesus in our neighbor, and Jesus reminds us that we are family.

Faith is to love one another as Mary and Jesus and faith in one another. A dynamic, growing, learning faith is what Mary and Jesus saw in one another – and how much we can learn from them.