Why Mary is blessed!

Luke 11:27-28

27 As Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd called out, “God bless your mother—the womb from which you came, and the breasts that nursed you!” 28 Jesus replied, “But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.”

Food for thought!

Despite being the shortest Gospel Reading, it is by far the most elucidating. Jesus was speaking when all of a sudden some woman interrupted him. She must have been thinking, not so much of what Jesus was saying, but of his mother. She was not thinking of the preacher but the preacher’s mother. She had been carried away by a moment of emotion.

And Jesus pulled her to reality: more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice. A short story. A pastor was preaching, and one old woman was all the time crying. The pastor saw her crying and thought that she was crying because he was making a point; he was touching her heart with his message. The more she cried, the more he preached, and the more he preached the more she cried.

 After service, the pastor sought the lady to find out how the message was touching her. To his amazement, the lady replied that she was crying because as the pastor spoke and she looked at his long beard, she remembered her he-goat that had suddenly died, the day earlier. She could not remember a word from the pastor’s sermon. This was the situation when Jesus was talking. And this is why Jesus reminded the woman: more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.

 This said, the woman made a point. The woman that mothered Jesus is indeed blessed. Mary is a blessed woman. Period. However, and this is critically important, Mary is blessed not for having biologically mothered Jesus, she is blessed in the first place, for having head God’s Word and having said, let it be done to me according to his word. If Mary had heard but ignored the word of God as spoken by the angel, she would never ever been blessed. It means, as Jesus put it, more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice, as Mary did. So, Jesus is not denying Mary her honour; he is teaching us the correct reason why Mary is and should be honoured.