Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. // Luke 11:28
I wrote my first devotion for Blessed is She on September 5, 2014, in the first week of its existence. Today, over nine years later, I believe this is my hundredth devotion written, or thereabouts anyway. After all that time, I don’t actually know how the BiS team assigns particular readings to particular writers, whether days are assigned at random or with foresight. But either the Holy Spirit or my editor thinks you ladies need to hear my take on whether Jesus is trying to take his mother down a peg. (Spoiler alert: He’s not.)
Last month, we talked about whether Jesus was dissing His mom when he said, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it" (Luke 8:21). Today, in response to a well-wisher in the crowd who cries out, "Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed" (Luke 11:27), Jesus says, "Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it" (Luke 11:28). In both instances, Jesus reminds us that Mary’s example does not lie in the fact that she was the Mother of God—which is a relief because we can’t emulate that.
Instead, Jesus highlights for us the way that Mary lives as a true daughter of God. She heard the word of God in a very direct way when the angel spoke to her at the Annunciation, of course. But, as you and I are doing right now, she also spent time reading Scripture and in prayer. And she did not stop there. She observed the word of God, and she acted on it.
At the Annunciation, at the Visitation, at the Wedding Feast at Cana, on the Via Dolorosa, Mary gives us the example of faith in action. What does God want us to hear today? And what does He want us to do?
Kendra Tierney Norton is grateful to be a wife, mother, and stepmother. She lives in the wilds of unincorporated Los Angeles County in a big old fixer-upper house with her husband and a varying number of their combined fourteen children, plus one fish, two cats, and twenty chickens. She likes to say that her goal is keeping Catholicism weird. To that end, she is the author of books including the Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life with Ignatius Press and O Come, Emmanuel: Advent Reflections on the Jesse Tree for Families with Emmaus Road Publishing, the creator of the TV series Catholic All Year At Home on FORMED, and the CEO of Catholic All Year, an apostolate dedicated to helping parents live out their Catholic faith and pass it along to their children.
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