“And Mary kept all these things, 

reflecting on them in her heart.”

As we close out the Octave of Christmas (eight days), celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and begin a new year, it is worth taking some time to keep and reflect on our experiences in our hearts. This is a form of pondering, which is more than simply remembering. We can prayerfully observe, explore, connect, and draw significance from our experiences. In this way, they seep down deep in our souls. It is deep within that our experiences can change us, can mold us to be more like Jesus. Mary is a model for us of faith. May her example of keeping and reflecting on things in her heart inspire us, as well, to change. As a help, I am indebted to Fr. Michael Graham, S.J., the retired president of Xavier University, for the following questions:

What was the best, the greatest, gift you received this year—not the brightest gift or the shiniest or the fastest or the most expensive gift, but the best gift, the greatest gift? Who gave it to you? And do they even know they did?

What was the best gift you gave this year, one that may have cost you a little or one which may have cost you a lot. And the little or a lot that it might have cost you might not have been money at all.

If there was something you did in the last several weeks which was just what someone else needed, just when they needed it, just what was it?

If there was one time when all your troubles, your cares and worries, seemed to you far, far away—what was that time? And what chased your troubles away?

If there was one glance you had of someone else that allowed you to see them fresh, as if for the very first time, yet see them as well radiant with all that they mean to you—what was that time? And who was that person?

Was there ever a time—perhaps in a crowd and surrounded with people or perhaps by yourself—that it struck you that you are a lucky, lucky person? What was that time? Who were those people around you, if people there were? And what seems to have brought that feeling on?

If you said one thing exactly right, exactly true and straight from your heart, just what exactly did you say? And to whom did you say it? And why? 

If within the last few weeks you brushed a tear from your eye secretly so that no one else could see it, why did that tear come? And what did that tear mean?

When do you feel the proudest? The happiest? The most content? Indeed, the most yourself?

If you could look back over the many, many moments of this tender season now ending and pick out one moment from among them all—just one—pick the one where somehow you knew in your heart that it was all true: the angels indeed did sing, the shepherds indeed did worship, the kings indeed did bring their gifts and bow low—and all of this because at that one moment you felt almost held aloft by kind and mighty hands; and if you could take that one moment and hold it in your heart forever, take it out and gaze upon it from time to time as if to look upon a kind of snow globe, just what would that one moment be?