Being like Mary

While I am still allowed to do so, I'd like to draw your attention to a funny thing that happens at least twice in Our Lord's preaching travels: someone mentions His mother ("Your mother and other kin are here, looking for you", and "Blessed is she who bore you and nursed you etc.": ... go, thou, and find them!) and Our Lord seems to dismiss these references, but on both occasions with very similar words

My mother and my brethren are they who hear the word of God, and do it

and

Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.

It must have been jarring to hear, because most of those who heard Him preach in His earthly voice probably hadn't studied Christian Hagiography.

Our Lady the Mother of God is of course nulli secunda one "who hears the word of God, and keeps it". Our Lord wasn't dismissing His mother by these Words, but rather pointing more properly to Her excellence.

Gratia Plena, ora pro nobis. Ss Anna et Ioachim, orate...