Today’s Gospel reminds me of an African praise-name for God that likens the Divine to a “large and deep pot.” Another African proverb says “a mother’s heart is as deep as a well.”

Imagine the heart of God, the heart of a mother, like a large and deep pot! That is precisely what today’s Gospel tells us about Mary in so many words: “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Have you ever wondered what things Mary kept in her heart? I think I have an idea: Mary kept the mystery of the incarnation in her heart, pondering and relishing it with reverence and awe.

As I reflect on today’s Gospel, the image of a mother’s heart, like God’s heart, as a large and deep pot, or a deep well, strikes me as a profound invitation to meditation and contemplation. This rich symbol reveals a spiritual depth and rootedness; it signals an amazing capacity to birth and to contain God, which is what Mary does. Such a gift of rootedness and depth is precisely the opposite of so much shallowness and superficiality that characterizes our world and our relationships in this day and age.

Imagine how Mary harbored and reflected on the mystery of God in her large and deep heart. What I find even more fascinating is the awareness that her profound contemplative reflection that the Gospel describes is anything but a portrait of passivity. Far from it. In reality, Mary is our quintessential “missionary disciple,” to use one of Pope Francis’s favorite expressions. She is an apostle of joy. Everything in today’s Gospel points us to this understanding.

Consider what happens after the shepherds encountered Mary and her incarnate divine bundle of joy. They leave her presence completely transformed: their awe is transformed into a passionate proclamation of the Good News; from simply gazing in amazement at the mystery of God-with-us they leave the manger glorifying and praising God. Their reaction and transformation, and the reaction and transformation of all the people who heard the Good News, tell us something about the depth, beauty, and radiance of Mary’s heart. Her heart is silent, but resplendent with divine glory; her heart is deep, but overflowing with life-giving love; her heart is large, but radiating boundless joy. Mary’s heart is one with God’s heart, who births us to life, and nourishes and sustains us in our daily living.

As I see it, Mary’s contemplative posture teaches us that the quality of our presence to one another, the depth of prayer in which we hold one another, and the expanse of our love for others can be life-giving beyond words and healing beyond all remedies, especially at times of anxieties and worries, loss and pain, uncertainty and despair, such as we have experienced during the pandemic. Her contemplative poise draws us into the loving embrace of the Divine, who loves and enfolds us in Christ. Her contemplative openness reveals God’s desire to touch and transform our lives with God’s light. Not only is Mary a missionary disciple, an apostle of joy, she is – to use a phrase from St. Ignatius of Loyola – a contemplative in action.

Like Mary, we, too, are called to cultivate and relish the interiority of God’s presence by opening our hearts to the deep and expansive love of God. Above all, we are called to be a source of life, a wellspring of healing, and a fount of hope for all women and men, especially those who are weak, vulnerable, abused, and marginalized. It takes a heart as deep as Mary’s to cherish and savor the gift of God-made-flesh for us. It takes a heart as large as Mary’s to come home to God’s loving embrace in this season of Christmas.