Saturday, October 14, 2017 27th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Jl 4:12-21 Gospel: Luke 11:27-28
As Jesus was speaking, a woman spoke from the crowd and said to him, “Blessed is the one who bore you and nursed you!” Jesus replied, “Surely blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it as well.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
When a woman from the crowd, seeing Jesus, exclaimed, “Blessed is the one who bore you and nursed you!” she was thinking of Mary’s motherhood from the biological perspective. Jesus took the conversation to higher planes when he directed the woman’s attention away from blood relationship to the essence of discipleship.
To Jesus, more relevant to the issue of biological motherhood was the issue of integrity. Mary lived out the dignity of her status as mother of God’s son. As early as the Annunciation event Mary already showed inkling towards the Will of God. In obedience to God’s proposal at the Annunciation Mary said: “Be it done unto me according to your Word”. And later when things became very difficult for her to understand “she kept everything in her heart and pondered upon them”. Her attitude was no different from the attitude of Jesus. We find in her “Magnificat” the echo of Jesus’ prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed to the Father saying, “Not my will but your will be done”.
Mary took her biological motherhood to higher planes by being Jesus’ most devoted disciple. God took the same even higher when, giving Mary’s motherhood an apostolic dimension, Jesus designated her at Calvary as mother of all mankind. He did this when he entrusted Mary to John and John to her. In Mary humanity found a new mother who takes us not to the forbidden tree as our first Mother Eve did but to the tree of salvation, the cross of the resurrection.
The story of the wedding at Cana makes us truly grateful that we have a universal mother who has great influence upon God. At her pleading Jesus was “forced” to perform a miracle at that Cana Wedding even though it was not yet his time to come out in public. So far she has used this great privilege to our advantage because she has not misled a single soul that had come to her protection. Our slogan “Ad Iesum per Mariam” (To Jesus through Mary) succinctly describes this particular role of Mary.
We can still take this slogan to higher plane by reformulating it as “Through Jesus WITH Mary” (Ad Iesum cum Maria). In the company of Mary, we grow easier towards the stature of Christ (“usque ad staturam Christi”) to become Jesus’ mother, brothers and sisters doing God’s will. –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.
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