Church Fathers Commentary Luke 11:27-28

"And it came to pass, as he said these things, a certain woman out of the multitude lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts which thou didst suck. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." — Luke 11:27-28 (ASV)

The Venerable Bede: While the Scribes and Pharisees were tempting our Lord and uttering blasphemies against Him, a certain woman from the crowd boldly confessed His incarnation. As the text says, “And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said to him, Blessed is the womb that bore you…” By this, she refutes both the slanders of the rulers present and the unbelief of future heretics.

For just as the Jews at that time denied the true Son of God by blaspheming the works of the Holy Spirit, so in later times heretics have denied that the ever-virgin Mary, through the power of the Holy Spirit, contributed from the substance of her own flesh to the birth of the only-begotten Son. They have claimed that we ought not to confess that He who was the Son of Man is truly of the same substance as the Father.

But if the flesh of the Word of God, born in the flesh, is declared to be foreign to the flesh of His Virgin Mother, for what reason are the womb that bore Him and the breasts that nursed Him pronounced blessed? By what logic do they suppose Him to be nourished by her milk, when they deny He was conceived from her substance? As physicians know, both milk and the substance of birth flow from the same source.

However, the woman pronounces a blessing not only on her who was considered worthy to give birth from her body to the Word of God, but also on those who, by hearing in faith, have spiritually conceived the same Word. She also blesses those who, by diligent good works, bring it to birth and nourish it, whether in their own hearts or in the hearts of their neighbors. For the Lord continues, “But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”

St. John Chrysostom: In this answer, He did not seek to disown His mother, but to show that His birth would have profited her nothing if she had not also been fruitful in works and faith. If, then, it profited Mary nothing that Christ was born from her without the virtue of her own heart, much less will it benefit us to have a virtuous father, brother, or son, if we ourselves are strangers to virtue.

The Venerable Bede: She was the mother of God, and for that reason she was indeed blessed, because she was made the earthly minister for the Word becoming incarnate. Yet she was far more blessed because she remained the eternal keeper of that same ever-beloved Word. But this statement startles the wise men of the Jews, who did not seek to hear and keep the word of God, but rather to deny and blaspheme it.