The Word Becomes a Way of Life: Theology and Sanctity

This piece was first featured in the "St. Bernard's Magazine" Spring 2024 issue. More information on how to be recipient of "St. Bernard's Magazine" can be found here.

In his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict XVI encourages scholars to “study the relationship between Mariology and the theology of the word. . . This could prove most beneficial both for the spiritual life and for theological and biblical studies” (n. 27). This makes sense. No one “hears the word of God and acts on it” (Lk 8:21) as Mary did. For Mary, this hearing and acting was inseparable from a dialogue with God in which she was “keeping all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:19). This is the heart of theology: pondering God’s word in one’s heart and then letting it grow and be magnified in one’s life.

Reflecting on Mary’s Magnificat, Benedict notes that Mary is “completely at home. . . with the word of God, with ease she moves in and out of it. She speaks and thinks with the word of God; the word of God becomes her word, and her word issues from the word of God. . . Here we see how her thoughts are attuned to the thoughts of God, how her will is one with the will of God” (Deus Caritas Est, n. 41).

But, of course, God’s word is also a Word that has become flesh in Mary. Mary’s main dialogue is with reality itself, the child who grows inside her and is born of her, God mysteriously present in her son. Why “mysteriously” present? After all, doesn’t Mary know from the beginning that her son is also the Son of the Most High? She does, of course — but we must also admit that after the wonders of the Annunciation and Jesus’ birth, this revelation becomes hidden from her sight. Except for that one moment when they find the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple doing “his Father’s work,” life at Nazareth is normal and unremarkable. Mary teaches Jesus to read. Joseph educates him in a trade. Jesus grows up and becomes a man among his people. And while all this was happening, Mary had to walk by faith. She had to continue to trust God and love her son in the everydayness of it all.

How this must have opened Mary’s heart to her neighbors! After God had acted so decisively in her life, what couldn’t she do for others? In this time, God was already preparing Mary to be the mother of each one of us, to take us to herself.

Benedict XVI tells us that, “Mary. . . symbolizes openness to God and others; an active listening which interiorizes and assimilates, one in which the word becomes a way of life” (Verbum Domini, n. 27). We see this kind of active listening at the Wedding Feast at Cana (Jn 2:1-11). Mary notices before everyone else that the wine is running low and goes to her son: “They have no more wine.” She then turns to the servants and discreetly tells them, “Do whatever he tells you.” Note well: first she draws her son to the need of their hosts: “They have no more wine.” Then she connects the servants to her son: “Listen to him.” She is intercessor, mediator, mother.

How can we do as she does? By letting the Word become a way of life. We meet Him in the circumstances of life. Let us serve Him — and serve Him in each other.