Working with the Word

Focusing the Gospel

Key words and phrases: Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart

To the point: What are the things Mary reflected on “in her heart”? Both marvelous events such as the angelic message relayed by the shepherds, and the painful circumstance such as a birth in a stable.

Mary grappled with both sides of the mystery of Jesus’ birth: the miraculous and the everyday, the joyous and the painful, what was already unfolding and what was yet to be revealed.

In all this she was really pondering the mystery of God’s presence and thus sublimely models how we too can recognize the Word being made flesh and dwelling among us.

Connecting the Gospel…

… to the Second Reading: Mary reflects “in her heart” on the mystery unfolding within and around her. This mystery is fully revealed when God pours “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,” making us children of God.

… to experience: Once we are beyond the Christmas season, we tend to forget about the import of the incarnation for our daily living. Mary teaches us that continued active reflection on this mystery is how we are drawn more deeply into its fullness and able more perfectly to live the grace of being children and heirs of God.

**From Saint Louis University