As we all know, the Church holds Mary, Jesus' mother, in the highest esteem. Many have great devotion to her, and pilgrimages to various Marian sites often draw big crowds. It is not without some basis that people sometimes say (wrongly, of course) that we worship Mary, so deep is the regard the Church has for her. It is with that background in mind that we might read today's Gospel (Lk 11: 27-28), in which a woman in the crowd praises Jesus by praising His mother. "Blessed is the womb that carried you, and the breasts at which you nursed," the woman says. The woman is saying that, since Jesus is so holy and righteous, His mother must have done a wonderful thing being His mother. We're reminded of the "Hail Mary" prayer, which contains the line "blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." And yet, that's not the point of this exchange. Jesus quite deliberately passes on the opportunity to honor His mother or the biology of His birth. In fact, what He says is, in essence, don't worry so much about that ("Rather," He says), what matters is to "hear the word of God and observe it." People who do that, whether they are male or female, His mother or someone off the street, those people are the ones who are "blessed." When I go to the Hennepin County jail and talk to the folks there about what matters and how they are going to avoid being in that place again, what I always hear is how they believe they need to "stay in the Word." They're talking about the supreme importance of staying connected to the scriptures, the word of God, so that they can live as Jesus teaches and avoid getting into trouble again. Easy to say when you're here, I say, and they agree. Not much else to do in jail. No problem reading the Bible every day. The trick is to stay in the Word when you're out in the world, with all of its demands and distractions. That's the trick for us too. We need to hear the Word every day. We can't observe it if we don't hear it. Read it, meditate on it, think about it, pray about it, talk about it (even blog about it). Make the connection between the word and the Word. Then contemplate how to observe it- while you're running or biking, or driving to work, or going to sleep. Sure Mary and the saints are important, and blessed. They can give us great examples of how to live. And they can show us the way to "hear" and "observe." That's what really matters, Jesus tells us today.