A reflection on Luke 8:19-21 for Tuesday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time.
Today’s Gospel makes me a little uneasy. Jesus is told that His mother and relatives are outside, wanting to see Him, and His response is not exactly what I would expect from a loving son. Instead of going out to greet them, He says, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”
As a mother, I can’t help but wonder what Mary thought when she heard those words. After all, this is the woman who said yes to God when an angel appeared with news that would turn her entire life upside down. She carried Jesus, gave birth to Him, cared for Him, and raised Him. Surely, if anyone had earned the right to be called His mother, it was Mary.
And yet, Jesus seems to be making a point that goes beyond family relationships. He is not rejecting His mother or diminishing her place in His life. In fact, He is revealing something extraordinary about her. Mary is blessed not simply because she gave birth to Jesus, but because she listened to God’s word and lived it. Long before she held Him in her arms, she had already welcomed Him into her heart.
That is where this Gospel begins to get a little uncomfortable for me personally.
I have been Catholic long enough to know the routines. I know when to stand, sit, and kneel at Mass. I know the prayers, the traditions, the holy days, and the particular feeling of realizing that I have forgotten a holy day until someone mentions it at an inconvenient moment. I love the familiar rhythms of Catholic life, and I am deeply grateful for the faith that has shaped my family.
But familiarity with the faith is not quite the same thing as faithfulness.
It is possible to be surrounded by holy things without allowing them to make us holy. I can have a crucifix on the wall, a Rosary within reach, and a Catholic calendar full of feast days, while still being stubborn, impatient, or unwilling to forgive someone who has hurt me. I can listen to the Gospel at Mass and then spend the rest of the day behaving as though it was intended primarily for the people sitting in the pews around me.
Jesus’ words remind me that belonging to Him requires more than knowing about Him or being comfortable in His Church. He asks me to hear His word and act on it. And that second part is usually where things become complicated.
Mary shows us what this looks like. Her yes at the Annunciation was not merely a beautiful moment of spiritual enthusiasm. It was the beginning of a life of obedience, trust, and sacrifice. She did not know everything that lay ahead, and Scripture tells us that she pondered things she did not fully understand. Yet she continued to place her life in God’s hands, even when following His will would eventually lead her to the foot of the Cross.
I sometimes wonder whether I have made Mary’s obedience seem a little too easy in my own mind. I admire her willingness to trust God, but I am considerably less enthusiastic when He asks the same of me. I want to know how things will turn out. I want reassurance that following Him will not interfere too much with my plans, my comfort, or the very reasonable opinions I have already formed about how my life ought to go.
Mary’s example gently exposes the difference between admiring holiness and actually pursuing it.
I can honor Our Lady, ask for her intercession, and teach my daughters to love her. These are beautiful and important parts of our Catholic faith. But if my devotion to Mary never leads me toward the obedience she modeled, then I am missing something essential about the woman I claim to admire.
Mary never draws our attention to herself as an end in itself. At Cana, her instruction to the servants was simple: “Do whatever he tells you.” She directs us toward her Son, inviting us to trust Him as she did. And I suspect that includes the occasions when what He tells us is not particularly convenient.
Today’s Gospel also challenges the way I think about passing on the faith to my children. I want my daughters to grow up loving the Church, knowing their prayers, receiving the sacraments, and feeling at home in the Catholic faith. But I cannot simply hand them a relationship with Christ as though it were a family heirloom. I can teach them about Jesus, pray with them, and try to show them what it means to follow Him. Eventually, they must learn to listen for His voice and respond to Him themselves.
And that means I need to pay attention to how I am responding to Him.
My children may learn something about the faith from the prayers we say together, but they also learn from the way I speak to them when I am tired, the way I treat their father, and whether I am willing to admit when I have been wrong. They see whether the Gospel is something I merely talk about or something I am trying, however imperfectly, to live.
There is something wonderfully hopeful about Jesus’ words today. He is not closing the door on His family. He is opening it wider, inviting all of us into a relationship with Him that is rooted in hearing and doing the will of God. We do not need to have grown up in a particular family, possess extraordinary spiritual gifts, or have lived an especially impressive life to belong to Him. We need to listen, respond, and keep returning to Him when we fall short.
Mary shows us the way. Her greatness is not diminished by Jesus’ words; it is illuminated by them. She is His mother, and she is also the perfect example of a disciple who welcomed God’s word and allowed it to shape her entire life.
I think that is what I want to carry with me from today’s Gospel. It is easy to feel close to Jesus when I am praying in church, holding my Rosary, or surrounded by the familiar comforts of Catholic life. The harder question is whether that closeness continues to shape me when I leave the church, return to my responsibilities, and encounter the ordinary frustrations and demands of the day.
Am I content simply to be near Jesus, or am I willing to let His words change the way I live?
Our Lady, teach me to listen as you listened, to trust as you trusted, and to say yes to your Son even when obedience asks more of me than I expected.