Mary knew how to "listen" to the Word

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church, "urges scholars to deepen as much as possible the relationship between Mariology and the theology of the Word. Mary, "Mother of the Word of God" and "Mother of Faith" appears as “model of docile acceptance of God’s word.”

At the Annunciation, Mary listens with all her heart to the announcement of the angel Gabriel. The book of Deuteronomy presents listening to the Word of God as the first of the commandments and the foundation of the love of God to be lived by the People of God: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength" (cf. Deut 6:4).

An African proverb says, "a woman conceives through the ear," which is a way of saying that listening, love and the gift of life are all connected.

Mary, the Jewish woman, and the first Christian, brings the Old Testament to its fulfilment, into the New Testament, in Jesus, born of a woman (cf. Gal 4:4). "Mary is also the symbol of openness to God and to others; of active listening which interiorizes and assimilates the Divine Word and where that Divine Word becomes the matrix of life." The Word of God becomes the matrix of a new way of thinking, of praying, of speaking and of acting.

Br. Manuel Rivero O.P.

Cathedral of Saint-Denis (Reunion Island), January 24, 2020