Benedict the theologian is versing us in the sole maxim history acknowledges: the only way to understand history is to question it. In this light, he helpfully resets the Christmas stories, back into their larger, resurrection frame: if this man rose from the dead, if death and sin have truly been conquered in his life, then we must know the origins of that life. We need to hear and to ponder. He asks:<\/p>\n
[H]ow did Matthew and Luke come to know the story that they recount? What are their sources? As Joachim Gnilka rightly says, it is a evidently a matter of family traditions. Luke indicates from time to time that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is herself one of his sources, especially when he says in 2:31 that \u201chis mother kept all these things in her heart\u201d\u009d (cf. Also 2:19). Only she could report the event of the annunciation, for which there were no human witnesses.<\/p>\n
Naturally modern \u201ccritical\u201d\u009d exegesis will tend to dismiss such connections as naive. But why should there not have been a tradition of this kind, preserved in the most intimate circle and theologically elaborated at the same time? Why should Luke have invented the statement about Mary keeping the words and events in her heart, if there were no concrete grounds for saying so? Why should he have spoken of her \u201cpondering\u201d\u009d over the words (Lk 2:19; cf. 1:29) if nothing was known of this? (16)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n