Today's Gospel

Break Down the Pedestal

Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we explore the eternal relevance of the gospel and the radical way it wants to transform our hearts, our minds, our lives, our relationships, and the world we live in. Today's reading is a short one, so let's lock in so that we don't miss whatever it is the Holy Spirit is trying to say to us.

As Jesus said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked." But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it." It's a powerful reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verses 27 and 28. It's short. Remember each day we're looking for a word or phrase or an idea that jumps out at you that the Holy Spirit uses to capture your attention. The thing for me here is that the woman crying out is like, "Blessed is the womb to bore you." Obviously, that's Mary, okay? And Mary's a spiritual giant, okay? But what's Jesus saying? Is he putting down the womb that bore him? Absolutely not. He's saying, "Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and kept it." This is powerful for a number of reasons. The first thing is we see a pedestal dynamic here. The woman who's crying out, she says, "Blessed is the womb that bore you," okay? And she's putting Mary on a pedestal. She may not know Mary, she may not know Mary, we don't know that. But she's putting Mary on a pedestal. And when we put people on pedestals, what we're essentially saying is, "That person's different to me. I'm just one of these normal, ordinary people. I could never be like that person on a pedestal." And it's called othering.

When we other people, we say, well, they're different to me. And we can do it in a lot of different ways. But here it's the pedestal syndrome. And so this woman is saying, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, putting Mary up on a pedestal, untouchable, unreachable. I can never be like her because I'm not the womb that bore you." And Jesus doesn't say yes to that or no to that. Doesn't say anything to that. But he brings it back to the speaker, and he says, "Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it." Now that's Mary too, right? Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. Only now, there's no pedestal. Now, what Jesus is saying is that this blessedness is available to everyone. It's accessible to everybody. You don't have to be the womb that bore me, but rather be those who hear the Word of God and keep it. Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. What is God saying to you today? And are you going to keep it in your heart?

Keep it in your heart and guard it in your heart so that you can live it in your life. Have a great day, and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.