Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX, 11 October 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644; and Thomas Traherne, Poet, Spiritual Writer, 1674.
Later this afternoon, I hope to sing with the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in the Autum Concert that includes the choir (directed by Jacob Collins), the church band (conducted by Fiona Collins), church handbells (directed by Kath Hindley), and children from Saint Mary and Saint Giles School (2:30 pm to 3:30 pm). Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 11: 27-28 (NRSVA):
27 While 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!’ 28 But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’
Today’s reflections:
The Gospels – and in particular Saint Luke’s Gospel – are scattered throughout with short pithy sayings from Jesus that I am reminded of when I read the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, the Pirkei Avot (פִּרְקֵי אָבוֹת) or Ethics of the Fathers in the Mishnah and Jewish tradition, or even the sayings of Zen masters.
This morning’s short Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 11: 27-28) quotes one of those short and pithy sayings or aphorisms from Jesus as it tells of his response to a woman who praises his mother’s womb and breast by reorienting blessedness away from biological kinship to those who hear and obey God’s word. Jesus does not reject the woman’s praise but redirects it to show that true blessedness comes from inner obedience rather than external relationship or family descent.
Jesus does not diminish Mary. Rather, he reveals that her greatness lies not in bearing his body, but in keeping his Word with a whole obedient heart.
The scene unfolds mid-discourse: Jesus has just cast out a demon, defended himself against accusations of Beelzebul, and spoken of the sign of Jonah and the lamp of the body (Luke 11: 14-26). ‘It came to pass, as he said these things’ ties the acclamation directly to the impact of his teaching and miraculous power – the crowd is astonished, and one woman’s astonishment breaks into voice.
The phrase ‘lifted up her voice’ (ἐπάρασά τις φωνὴν eparasa tis phōnēn) is not merely colourful narration. Luke uses it elsewhere (Acts 2: 14; 14: 11) for moments of public, emphatic proclamation. This anonymous woman is not whispering a private thought; she is making a declaration before the crowd. Her words – ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you’ – are a Semitic macarism, a beatitude expressed in the idiom of Jewish wisdom literature, closely paralleling forms found in Proverbs and the Psalms.
To honour a great man by honouring his mother was a recognised cultural form of praise in the ancient Near East (see Judges 5:2 8). The woman’s instinct is not wrong; it is incomplete. Her praise reaches towards Mary but stops at the biological.
The Greek word for ‘blessed’ here is μακάριοι makarioi, the same root as the Beatitudes in Luke 6: 20-22 and the angel’s to greeting of Mary in Luke 1: 28, 42, 48. This echo is theologically loaded: the woman has unknowingly invoked the very category that the Gospel has already applied to Mary in the Magnificat – Mary’s prophecy that ‘all generations will call me blessed’ (μακαριοῦσίν, makariousin, Luke 1: 48).
The opening Greek word in Jesus’ response, μενοῦνγε (menounge) – translated variously as ‘on the contrary’, ‘yea rather’, or ‘indeed’ – is one of the most debated particles in Lukan Greek. It does not function as a simple negation (οὐ, ou, ‘no’) but as a strong, even emphatic, redirection and deepening.
Jesus is not dismissing the woman’s praise; he is relativising it upward. The logic is: ‘What you say is good – but hear something even greater.’ This corrective-affirmation is a characteristic Lukan rhetorical move. In Luke 10: 20, for example, Jesus tells the disciples not to rejoice in their power over spirits but in their names written in heaven – not a negation, but a re-ordering of joy.
‘Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it’ (φυλάσσοντες phulassontes) – the participle phulassontes means not merely passive reception but active guarding, cherishing, obeying. It is the language of a watchman, a keeper of a sacred deposit. This phrasing echoes Luke 8: 21: ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it.’ Together, these two passages form a deliberate Lukan bracket around Jesus’ public ministry, each time defining the true family of God in terms of obedient hearing.
The anonymous woman represents Israel’s instinct – long trained by Torah and prophecy – to seek blessedness in bloodline, covenant descent, and physical proximity to the holy. Jesus does not abolish this instinct but transfigures it: blessedness now flows from a new and universal covenant of the Word. In the spiritual sense, each of us is implicitly asked: where do you locate blessedness? In externals – national identity, family connection, religious ritual. Or in the interior act of hearing and guarding the Word?
Crucially, this passage implicitly glorifies Mary most of all by its logic: she is the one human being who most perfectly heard and kept the Word of God. The woman’s praise is not undone – it is shown to have a far deeper foundation than she imagined.
Excessive sentimentalism reduces Mary to a warm maternal figure disconnected from discipleship. Defensive minimalism downplays her entirely to avoid seeming unbiblical. Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 11: 27-28) corrects both. Mary is not blessed simply because she is tender and maternal; she is blessed because she heard the Word of God at the Annunciation (‘Let it be with me according to your word’, Luke 1: 38) and kept it through the the Passion, Crucifixion, and beyond. That makes her the first and model disciple, not merely an object of devotion.
The practical challenge in this reading is the same word Jesus uses: φυλάσσοντες phulassontes, to guard, to keep, to protect. Hearing the Word is often easy; but keeping it, letting it shape decisions about money, relationships, ethical behaviour, public, political and social action, interior life, my responses to racism, violence, poverty, injustice and oppression in society today, is the narrow gate.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 10 October 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, 4-10 October 2026 (pp 44-45), has been ‘The Gun, The Sword, and The Bible’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Les Isaac OBE, founder and President of Ascension Trust and co-founder of Street Pastors.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 10 October 2026) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray for your Kingdom to be made real in clarity, unity and hope across the world. May all people come together to reflect your love and glory.
The Collect of the Day:
God our Saviour,
who sent Paulinus to preach and to baptize,
and so to build up your Church in this land:
grant that, inspired by his example,
we may tell all the world of your truth,
that with him we may receive the reward
you prepare for all your faithful servants;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Paulinus and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Trinity XIX:
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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