23 July 1991
Kediri, Indonesia

My dear Sisters and my dear Confreres,

When St. John the Evangelist was finishing the writing of his Gospel, he knew that there were very many more things he could say about Jesus Christ, but it would take too long to put them down on paper. "There are also many other things which Jesus did," wrote St. John, "if every one of them were to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." (Jn 21:25). When we listen to the Gospels being read, we often think that we would like to have more information about the events or the words of Jesus. We can only resign ourselves to waiting until we get to heaven to learn more about the details of Our Lord's life, death and resurrection.

When you heard in today's Gospel that, while Jesus was addressing the crowds, His Mother came on the scene and wanted to speak with Him, did the question: "I wonder what she wanted from Him," arise in your mind? St. Matthew, the Evangelist, does not tell us. As long as we are in this life, we can only guess what she wanted from her Son, Jesus. She was a mother, so perhaps she wanted to assure herself that He had sufficient food and shelter, or perhaps she wanted to know if she could be of any practical assistance to Him in His work of preaching to the people. Did she come to ask Him to do a favor for a neighbor of theirs in Nazareth who was sick? Had she heard of some family in distress and too embarrassed to ask for help? Remembering the miracle He worked at Cana, did she come to ask Him to relieve the embarrassment of this family in the way that He had relieved the embarrassment of the hosts at the marriage feast of Cana?

Before Our Lord spoke to His Mother, He reminded the people that the important thing in life, and particularly for those who wanted to be His friends, was doing the Will of our Heavenly Father. Because He was thinking of His Mother at that particular moment, did He add, "There is one person who at every moment of her life has done perfectly the Will of our Heavenly Father, and that person is My Mother Mary?" If He did not say that on this particular occasion, He has said it since. Jesus Christ said that He would be with His Church until the end of time. We know that His Church has said with infallible certainty that Mary, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, was not only conceived without sin but lived a totally sinless, life and so she perfectly fulfilled the Will of God at every moment.

Today both Our Lord and His Mother are body and soul in heaven. Their bodies are changed, but they are the same persons that they were on earth. Mary is still a mother. She is mother, as we know, to each one of us and, because she is a mother, she has a heart and an ear for all our needs. It is still her vocation to be a mother. We know that the smallest needs of a child will always receive the attention of its mother, if she is a good mother. Our Lady's greatest concern for us is that we would do the Will of God, for she knows that is the way that we will reach the place where she and her Son are now. If you do not know the way to a place, you will ask directions. The directions which Mary offers us are the same as those which she offered to the waiters at the marriage feast of Cana. On that occasion she said to the servants: "Do whatever He tells you." (Jn 2:4). She is saying the same to you and to me today. Do whatever Jesus tells you. Jesus Himself has left this earth, but He lives on in His Church, in the Sacraments and in the pages of the New Testament. So if we are to do what He wants us to do, we must listen to the Church. We must listen to His voice as it is expressed to us through our Constitutions and through our Superiors. We must reverently approach Him in the Sacraments and we must take a little time every day to reflect on His words as we hear them proclaimed in the Gospel at every Mass.