In reflecting on today’s passage from Luke, Fr. Ron Rolheiser asks, “Is Jesus distancing himself from his mother here? No. He’s pointing out the real link between them: among all the people in the gospels, Mary is the pre-eminent example of the one who hears the word of God and keeps it.” Fr. Rolheiser interestingly looks at how Mary gave birth to Christ as something we are called to do in our lives – giving birth to faith in Christ. “Looking at how Mary gave birth to Christ, we see that it’s not something that’s done instantly. Faith, like biology, also relies on a process with several distinct, organic moments. What are these moments? What is the process by which we give birth to faith in the world? Mary wants imitation, not admiration. Our task, too, is to give birth to Christ. Mary is the paradigm for doing that. From her, we get the pattern: Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant; gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life; submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside; then spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood; and finally, during and after all of this, do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go. It began with Mary, but each of us is asked to make our own contribution to giving flesh to faith in the world.”