Continuing the Spiritual Journey

By: E. Jane Rutter

“…and his mother kept all these things in her heart” ends the narration of the Feast of the Passover (Luke 2:51). Christians, we know the story.

When Jesus was twelve, Joseph and Mary joined a caravan of friends and relatives traveling to the temple in Jerusalem for the annual festival. On the way home from the celebration, they lost Jesus, unable to find him among the group. Parents, we can imagine them hurrying back to Jerusalem frantically searching until they found their beloved son in the temple three days later. Nonplussed, Jesus was surprised they didn’t assume he would be in “his father’s house.”

This is the third time St. Luke tells us about Mary’s heart. The first took place when the shepherds appeared at the manger with the astounding story that they were guided there by an Angel of the Lord, who told them of the Savior’s birth. “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

The second was when Jesus was 40 days old. Joseph and Mary traveled to the temple to consecrate the baby to the Lord and, there, encountered Simeon and Anna. Devout Jews whom the Holy Spirit had revealed they would live to see the savior, they both recognized Jesus as the Child of God who would fulfill Israel’s destiny. “The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him” (Luke 2:33). Further, Simeon told Mary that “… and you yourself a sword will pierce-so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35).

Imagine! St. Luke doesn’t record denials, rebuttals, weeping, or other emotional reactions from Mary’s heart –the heart often considered second to logic and intellect as the seat of “emotions.” No, he instills us with the seriousness with which Mary accepted her God-given mission as mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Her heart shares with us a legacy of love, strength, wisdom, grace and guidance. We know Mary as God’s servant: open, trusting, and obedient.

From the moment she said “yes” to God throughout the revelations from the shepherds, Simeon and the 12-year-old Jesus (and surely through the sword that pierced it at his death) Mary’s heart and mind were aligned as one with God.

In her essay, An Integrated Mind and Heart, St. Theresa Aletheia Noble, says, “When we strive to live united to Jesus, we can be sure that he will continue to integrate our minds and our hearts more fully in him.”1 She adds that “The world needs women’s minds and hearts, joined in Christ, to be like two rivers that purify one another in a unity that can only come from the One who is both Logos and Love.” (Ibid)

You and I, like Mary and Joseph, are challenged to open our hearts to God, hear Him speak to us through others, and serve Him with wisdom and grace.

And so I pray: Dear Lord, soften my heart and sharpen my mind. Strengthen them as one pure force united in fulfilling Your purpose.

1Rachel Bulman, ed. With All Her Mind: A Call to the Intellectual Life (Illinois: Word on Fire, 2022), 60.