(28) 

Blessed are they that hear the word of God.—The term thus used clearly designates
here the message of the Kingdom spoken by our Lord Himself, as in the parable of the
Sower (Matthew 13:20). In its wider application, it of course includes, though it must not be
confined to it, the record of that spoken Word, or of subsequent revelations of the Truth in
what we know as Scripture.

Luke 11: 27-28

W hile he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and

said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed
you!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and
obey it!"

True Blessedness

T he teaching is precise: Listen to the word of God and keep it. A little

earlier Luke tells us: “Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they
could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, ‘Your mother and
your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you. But he said to them,
‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’" 
Lk.8:19-21.

Now we have an additional instruction: Listen and keep, yes but put it into
practice. Finally there is: Keep and ponder in the heart. Listen, keep, put into
practice, ponder in the heart. It is not by chance that all these actions are
centered around Mary. St. Anselm says: "She so listened to the word of God
that it took flesh within her." Mary is the model of one who listens, keeps the
word and puts it into practice in her life. But she is also the model of one who
ponders the word of God. Speaking of the Gospel of John, Origen says: "No
one may understand the meaning of the Gospel, if they have not rested on the
breast of Jesus and received Mary from Jesus, to be their mother also."

The directions: Keep, listen, put into practice, ponder - their strength lies in
their being found together. Jacques Loew suggests the quality of our lives, as
Christians, will depend on the extent to which we manage to unite them. 

To listen means to pay heed, to have an attentive ear, to be quiet. It is said, it

was a custom in some Palestinian families that when a slave was received into
a home the master of the house took him over to the door and drove an awl
through the lobe of his ear into the door post. The object of the exercise was to
remind the slave that his work was to listen! In the Old and New Testament,
hearing is more important than seeing.  Seeing is good but for the biblical
writers hearing is more important.

Why the primacy of hearing? Because God spoke. Yahweh speaks to his
people. God's word is also creative. "He spoke and all things were made." The
words "He said" are the first thing that we are told about God. Our
relationship with God is a mouth to ear relationship. How often the prophets
say: "Listen!" Each morning a Jew begins the Tephilah with the words: "Listen
O Israel". Recall the number of times when Jesus begins preaching in parables
- and says, "Listen".

To these instructions we may add: Pondering in the heart. "Mary kept all
these things, pondering them in her heart" Lk. 2:19. The Greek word means to
ponder-over. It is a process which has been described as a gentle chewing of
the word that slowly releases its inner riches. In Hebrew, the word for
pondering means murmuring, meditating. "How blessed are those... who
finds their pleasure in the law of Yahweh, murmuring that over, day and
night."

Keeping the word is the work of sowing a seed, allowing it to take root. It
presupposes a climate in which it can germinate and become rooted in the
heart. Once we have heard the word we must make it stay in us, not keeping
it in cold storage but allowing it to grow through successive stages in our
lives. 

THE BLESSEDNES OF OBEYING THE WORD OF GOD.

It is wonderful to have the Word of God; it is more wonderful to hear the

Word of God; it is most wonderful to obey the Word of God. Then you will be
more blessed than if you’d been the Virgin Mary. Remember in the parable of
the sower those men are commended who “with a noble and good heart, hear
the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (Luke 8:15).