A brief Gospel, but a profound one. A woman in the crowd, clearly impressed with the holiness and goodness of Jesus, is moved with the thought of what it would have been like to bear such a child into this world; how His mother must be so proud of the man He is. And so she declares this realization: blessed is the woman who bore such a child, and raised such a man! No doubt Jesus is touched by the sentiment, but seeing the woman’s heart open to grace, and able to consider deeper things, He says, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” This woman would not know His Mother, Mary, but He has essentially told her that His Mother was not blessed because she bore Him, but she was blessed because she heard God’s Word and observed it: she surrendered to His will, and obeyed Him in everything. In so doing she became the Mother of the Word of God, for she listened with her entire being. Bearing Jesus, birthing Him, nursing Him, raising Him: these blessings flowed out of her observance of God’s Word, first through the angelic message of Gabriel.
Let us take this teaching to heart; let us strive to listen to God’s Word, letting it transform us and how we live, that we, too, might be blessed as Mary was, bearing the Word of God in our hearts to all we meet.