her whole person, body and soul, which knows no autonomy but only the law of conformity with the word of God. It is because she is a virgin, that is, pure, exclusively a hearer of the word, that she becomes a mother, the place of the Word’s embodiment. Her “breasts” are blessed only because she has heard the word of God and kept it (Lk 11:27 f), because she “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19, 51). All contemplation must take its directions from Mary if it is to keep the twofold danger at bay: on the one hand that of seeing the word as something merely external,
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