October is one of those months that we focus devotion on Mary, with her many titles — Mother of God, Tower of Ivory, Lady of Perpetual Help, etc.
We seldom think of Mary, however, as Mother of the Word of God. Jesus is God’s Word become Flesh. She is the mother of that Blessed Word!
How ironic that we usually think of Mary as the woman wrapped in silence, keeping everything in her heart, not saying much. How could Mother of the Word remain silent?
When we survey the Gospels, we find that the Blessed Mother often spoke, and her words carried weight. She interrogates the angel Gabriel, asking how she will have a baby. She speaks in poetic verses when greeted by Elizabeth, her cousin. It is Mary who speaks up and asks the child Jesus who had left Joseph and Mary for three days in Jerusalem, “My child, why have you done this to us?”
Mary is the one to talk up the need for Jesus to work a miracle at the Wedding in Cana — “Son, they have no more wine.”
She must have spoken to Christ upon the cross those three hours — for He spoke to her while dying for us.
Tradition tells us Mary prayed with the early Church at the first Pentecost.
Mary, whom we honor during October, was a woman of silence, sorrow and contemplation — but also a woman of words, joy and action. She was a woman of the Word who gave her word, “Yes,” so that the Word could become Flesh and dwell among us.