Gospel Reading : Luke 11:27-28
As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!”
But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
What do the Fathers say?
The Venerable BEDE. While the Scribes and Pharisees were tempting our Lord, and uttering blasphemies against Him, a certain woman with great boldness confessed His incarnation, as it follows, And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, …. by which she refutes both the calumnies of the rulers present, and the unbelief of future heretics.
But the woman pronounces blessed not only her who was thought worthy to give birth from her body to the Word of God, but those also who have desired by the hearing of faith spiritually to conceive the same Word, and by diligence in good works, either in their own or the hearts of their neighbours, to bring it forth and nourish it; for He said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
St John CHRYSOSTOM. In this answer He sought not to disown His mother, but to show that His birth would have profited her nothing, had she not been really fruitful in works and faith.
But if it profited Mary nothing that Christ derived His birth from her, without the inward virtue of her heart, much less will it avail us to have a virtuous father, brother, or son, while we ourselves are strangers to virtue.
The Venerable BEDE. But she was the mother of God, and therefore indeed blessed, in that she was made the temporal minister of the Word becoming incarnate; yet therefore much more blessed that she remained the eternal keeper of the same ever to be beloved Word.
But this expression startles the wise men of the Jews, who sought not to hear and keep the word of God, but to deny and blaspheme it.
St. BERNARD. “How great favour hast thou found in the sight of God, how very nigh hast thou been brought to Him! He abides in thee, and thou in Him. Thou didst provide Him a garment, and in turn thou are clothed upon by Him. He received of thee the garment of the flesh; He clothed thee with the glory of His majesty. Thou didst clothe the sun with a cloudy covering, and thou thyself art encircled with its splendours.”
St EPHREM. salutes her as “the hope of the Fathers, the glory of the Prophets, the praise of the Apostles, the honour of the Martyrs, the joy of the Saints, and the light of the Patriarchs of old.”
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
Cornelius à Lápide’s Great Commentary Translated By Thomas W. Mossman, Assisted By Various Scholars, London 1887
Artwork ex Wikimedia Commons