Blessed Is Womb That Bore You

There was a holy jealousy among the women of Judea towards Mother Mary. It is different from the ungodly, selfish jealously. They admired and looked up to Mary for giving birth and bringing up a son who exhibits so much kindness and compassion. A woman seeing what Jesus was doing and saying, cries out in holy jealousy, blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that nursed you (Luke 11: 27-28). Blessed is the mother who gave birth to you and looked after you. It was in some sense the same words of Elizabeth, “Blessed are you among women.”

To be blessed is to be granted special favour by God with joy and prosperity as its result. From God's promise to Abraham that He would bless him and his children, to Mother Mary whom the angel of the Lord called blessed, to the thief on the cross to whom Jesus promised the paradise, all have received special favours from God.

In the New Testament in the light of the Beatitudes, however, the emphasis is more on spiritual rather than on material blessings (Matthew 5: 1-12). It means an inner peace, an inner bliss, an inner happiness, and an inward joy that is not produced nor affected by circumstance. It is this blessedness that empowered and strengthened Mary to go though every situations in her life.

This gospel gives us Mary as a paradigm of blessedness. There are at least three occasions in the Gospels where Mary is declared to be a specially blessed one. The angel Gabriel greeted Mary as the favoured one of God (Luke 1: 28). Elizabeth declared Mary as the blessed among women (Luke 1: 42-45). In this Gospel an anonymous woman announces the blessedness of Mary as the one who bore Jesus in her womb and nursed him.

Jesus hears the words of that anonymous woman and seems to tell her, Mary is blessed not just because she bore Jesus in her womb, and nursed him; she is blessed because she did the will of our father in heaven. Jesus elsewhere says that God can raise children for Abraham even from mere stones. But here Mary the stone is special and beautiful because this stone collaborated with the plan of God to raise God’s son. As some non-Catholics believe and spread around, Mary was not just the egg from which Jesus got hatched, and after the hatching Mary is not mere broken and useless eggshell. Mary through her fiat became the mother of the incarnate Son and a mediator of the salvific mystery.

In another narration of the same incident Jesus was even more blunt and said, who is my mother and brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother (Matthew 12:46-50). They are who accept, take responsibility, and live the Word of God. This perhaps is a parallel and more relevant genealogy of Jesus.

In the beginning of the New Testament, the spirit of the Lord hovered over Mary, the lowly Jewish girl from Nazareth, like the Spirit of Lord hovered over the waters in the beginning of time. Mary was told that she shall conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit and bear a child who is God. St. Augustine says, ‘The cosmos stood still’ to hear the response of Mary. She responded ‘yes’: yes to God, yes to life, yes to love, yes to suffering, and yes to God still unborn yet breathing. That saying yes to the will of God made Mary blessed, and would make us blessed.

Comments

Third-Day Is The Most Optimistic Day in The Scriptures

Hosea the prophet had to go through much because he was a prophet; he was even asked to get married to a prostitute in the town. Yet, Hosea says, “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds…. On the third day he will restore us” (Hosea 6:1-2). Retreat is this day (days) of restoration; retreat is we, revisiting our God. The third day is the most optimistic day. The Gospels repeatedly speak of the third day. After losing the boy Jesus, on the third day, his parents found him in the temple (Luke 2:41-52). Jesus returns to his parents on the third day; perhaps he said sorry too. The third day is a day of returning home, returning to the community; it is a day to forgive and ask forgiveness. One of the biggest confidence of Jesus was that he had not lost anyone who was given to him, to his care (John 18:9). On the third day, there was a marriage in Cana in Galilee, and when they ran short of wine Jesus

Go And Preach The Gospel

For St. Francis, the gospel was everything, and the only thing to follow. Young Francis was inspired and caught up with the gospel. He was drawn to it; but at the same time confused. Once after hearing the gospel in a church, he went to the sacristy and asked the old priest, ‘Is the gospel an ideal form of living or is it a mandate for living?’ The priest caught between the gap between his life and the gospel. But later with honesty and courage the priest said, the gospel is a mandate for living. If it is an ideal form of living, a lot of compromise will take place. If it is a mandate for living there is no escape. Matthew 10: 6-16 gives us a mandate as to how to go around the world preaching. These are the guidelines for discipleship. Here the lifestyle of the disciples is defined. He sent them two by two. In Jewish tradition, if something has to be established as true, another has to second what you are saying; so it was sensible to send them two by two. Further, we need brothers a

Dig Deep Enough, And Blessings Come To You

Life is flat like a field on which the farmer was digging in Matthew 13: 44-46. But the idea is that if you dig deep enough you will find treasures in your life, however flat your life may be, as the farmer found treasure in his flat field. In life, revival is possible. The first question of Jesus, ‘who do people say that I am’ was just a process of information gathering. The second question, ‘who do you say that I am’ demanded an answer from the disciples (Matthew 16:13-20). An unquestioned life goes nowhere. The disciples went into a moment of silence. They had to dig deep. However flat the life of peter was, when he dug deep enough, he could see, hear the revelation of the Father, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Having heard the answer of Peter, Jesus gives Peter, the other disciples, and all of us, four blessings: on you (Peter) the rock I will build my church, never will the power of death over come the church, I will give you the keys of the heaven; whatever yo

St. Francis Of Assisi—Take His Stories Seriously

From 2023-2026 we have a series of centenaries of St Francis of Assisi. Though lived only for just 44 years, the size and reach of his life is still growing. He has many names; we call him a brother, and at the same time, a mystic. A mystic is someone who does not operate from a place of faith, instead he has moved on to a place of knowledge, experience, and living; he/she does not need faith anymore. A mystic already lives what people of faith are only believing. This year is the 800 th anniversary of the Stigmata of St. Francis—he was a mystic and he was already there. Francis was born in 1181. He lived an unconscious, unattended, normal life, like any other, for first 24 years. Returning home from the Assisi-Perugia war, as a loser and wounded, Francis went through an awakening moment. One of the existential philosophers has a story of a stonecutter, whose only tool on which he trusted was a hammer. One day, as he was at his work, the hammer breaks, and the stonecutter fell on his

Uncompromising Starting Points Of Discipleship

Living according to the Gospel also makes us pay a price (Luke 9: 57-62). Jesus was magnetic; many got attracted to him spontaneously. Nobody gives his or her life for a cause that is dead. They all wanted to follow Jesus, but could not sustain because of three reasons. Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head. You are condemned to be in perennial disturbance. You will be homeless. You almost are not supposed to be happy, meaning enjoying the pleasures of life. Being joyful is a gospel value. There is a difference between happiness and joy ( santhosham vs anandam ). Jesus had a home; being there Jesus remained homeless. Pastoral care is our anxiety over the people. ‘Jesus found them like sheep without a shepherd.’ He had compassion for them.’ I will bury my father and come back. It is often read as ‘let me fulfill my domestic responsibilities,’ but the passage does not indicate that his father or mother is dead. Jesus

Being Spiritual Is a Never-Ending Process

It is a constant occurrence in the gospels that Jesus comes in conflict with the religious authorities of his time, on food and fasting, on washing hands and pots, on Sabbath and prayer, and even on the idea of god. In Luke 6: 1-5 too the same happens on food and working on a Sabbath. It has been a troubling urge and itch of humanity, and also of the church, to decide clear-cut boundaries for God, boundaries for doing good; thus make their existence acceptable and comfortable. All systems exclude, expel, punish, and protect to find identity for their members in ideological perfection or some kind of “purity.” Richard Rohr in Everything Belongs argues, i t seems that we Christians have been worshiping Jesus’ journey instead of doing his journey. If your prayer is not enticing you outside your comfort zones, if your Christ is not an occasional “threat,” you probably need to do some growing up and learning to love. And he goes on to say; “God is always bigger than the boxes we build

Who Is The Greatest?

The disciples of Jesus disputed among themselves, perhaps not for the first or for the only time, about “who is the greatest among them” (Luke 9: 46-50). Most people do this at least in their mind. Many of us are fake great people. We just feel that we are great, and act as one. Feeling great without being great is a dangerous thing. Jesus gives them two parameters to measure one’s greatness. How do you treat insignificant people? Jesus takes a little child and places her in the midst of them, and tells them, ‘Whoever welcomes this little child in my name is the greatest.” Greatness depends on one’s capacity to accept people who are poor, handicapped, slow in understanding, etc. with our constant exposure to religious activities we are able to empathize, spend time with those who are less privileged than us. How do we deal with people who are equal to us? John brings up a serious matter to Jesus, their master, namely, he saw someone driving out demons in Jesus’ name and they tried to

SPRINGBOARDS and WALKING STICKS

Search This Blog