Mary in the Gospels

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s Gospel does not mention Mary specifically, nor is she mentioned very often in the Gospels. However, we know our Mother lived the words she heard from Jesus. She “kept all these things in her heart”. Mary is both our Mother and our Model.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.” (MT 5:13-16)

When I listened to this morning’s Gospel I pondered: how did Mary “enter into the interior movement of the Word”; how did she “consider with care” these words of Jesus?

Come, Holy Spirit, fill us as you filled Mary, that we may learn all the Truth. Kindle in us the Fire of Your Love, that we may live the Truth we hear, as Mary did.
Mary, Mother of the Word, Mother of the Church, pray for us

 

[JurisPrudens]

“enter into the interior movement of the Word”

Where is this quotation from?

 

[MariaChristi]

“enter into the interior movement of the Word”

Dear JurisPrudens,

Thanks for your reply and for asking the source of the quote – I wasn’t sure how many had read it, recently, when I posted this excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI on another thread:

…We are always in search of the Word of God. It is not just present in us. If we stop at the letter of the Word, we have not necessarily understood the Word of God. There is the danger that we only see the human words and fail to find within the true actor, the Holy Spirit. We do not find the Word in words.
St. Augustine, in this context, reminds us of the scribes and Pharisees consulted by Herod when the Magi arrived. Herod wanted to know where the Savior of the world would be born. They knew it, and gave him the correct answer; Bethlehem. They were great experts, who knew everything. And yet, they did not see reality, they did not recognize the Savior.
St. Augustine says - they showed the way for others, but they themselves did not move. This is a great danger,too, in our reading of Scripture: we stop at the words, human words from the past, a history of the past, and we do not discover the present in the past, the Holy Spirit which speaks to us today in words from the past.
And so we fail to enter into the interior movement of the Word, which hides in human words and opens the divine words. That is why there is always need for ‘considering with care’. We should be in search of the Word within words.
Therefore, exegesis, the true reading of Sacred Scripture, is not simply a literary phenomenon, it is not limited to reading the text. It is the movement of my own existence. It is moving towards the Word of God in human words.
Only by conforming to the mystery of God, to the Lord who is the Word, can we enter into the Word, only then can we truly find the Word of God in human words.

This excerpt is from an address to the Synod of Bishops, dedicated to the theme, “The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church,” October 5th – 26th, 2008. I was so blessed by this quote it remained with me as I pondered today’s Gospel. I underlined the whole sentence for the phrase above and posted the whole context so you’d have a better idea of what the Pope said.