Your speech is her word: Mary and the word that does not fail

But your word must be, Yes, yes; No, no. Anything beyond this is from the evil one.
Mt 5:37

The third antithesis in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:33-37) radicalizes the prohibition against false swearing: “You have heard it said to the ancient, ‘Do not swear falsely, but fulfill your oaths to the Lord.’ But I tell you, do not swear at all…” (Mt 5:33-34). Jesus did not simply abolish swearing; he pointed to a level of integrity where swearing becomes unnecessary: when human speech is absolutely trustworthy, it does not need to be reinforced by oaths. This Saturday, the day the liturgy dedicates especially to the Memory of Our Lady, is an opportunity to contemplate in Mary the model of this absolute integrity of word: she whose “fiat” was an eternal and unconditional “yes” to God, whose words at Cana, “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5), are the perfect synthesis of Jesus’s demanded “yes, yes. No, no”.

I. The antithesis on swearing: from letter to Spirit

The context of swearing in first-century Jewish culture was complex: there was an entire body of rabbinic jurisprudence regarding which oaths were binding and which could be avoided, depending on whether one swore by God, the Temple, Jerusalem, or the head of the household. Jesus cuts through this Gordian knot with a radicalness characteristic of him: instead of regulating which oaths are valid, he calls for an integrity of speech that makes swearing superfluous. When every human word is absolutely trustworthy, there is no need to reinforce it with divine invocations.

Jesus’s “yes, yes. No, no” (estô de ho logos hymôn nai nai, ou ou) can be read as a forceful emphasis (the equivalent Aramaic for “absolutely yes” or “absolutely no”) or as a request for simplicity and directness: to say what one means, without ambiguity, without evading the truth, without the “loophole” that the system of oaths allowed. In either case, the demand is the same: human speech must be absolutely reliable, not just when sworn, but always and in every circumstance.

The connection Jesus draws between the need for swearing and “the evil one” (apo tou ponêrou) is theologically profound: where human speech is untrustworthy, where it needs to be reinforced with oaths to be believed, that is a sign that sin has corrupted human communication. Lying, manipulation, evading the truth are not merely individual moral failings; they are expressions of “the evil one” who has corrupted human language, which should have been the mirror of divine Truth. The “purity of speech” Jesus calls for is ultimately the recovery of human language to its original function: to manifest truth, not to hide it.

# Religious Tradition and the “Yes, Yes. No, No” Principle

The religious tradition, particularly the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Constitutions of many religious congregations, has understood the “yes, yes. no, no” principle as the foundation for the vow of obedience: the word given to the Rule and the Superior is a word with no hidden interpretations or conditions. However, the demand of Matthew 5:37 extends beyond religious life, applying to every human word in contracts, family promises, communication, and politics. The contemporary erosion of public trust in words, where “spin” and “narrative” replace direct truth, is a symptom of the “evil” precisely diagnosed by Matthew 5:37.

## II. Mary’s “Fiat”: The Unfailing “Yes”

Mary’s “fiat” at the Annunciation, “Be it done unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38), is the absolute “yes” of Matthew 5:37 in its most profound form. Mary did not say “yes with conditions,” nor did she say, “yes if circumstances are favorable,” or “yes but I reserve the right to reconsider.” She said “yes” absolutely, totally, without reservations, to God’s project announced by the angel, a project she did not fully comprehend and which entailed consequences she could not foresee.

The theological development of Mary’s Marian “fiat” has extensively explored its dimension of freedom: Mary said “yes” freely, not under divine compulsion. God “waited” for her “yes,” implying that the “no” was possible. This possibility of “no” is what makes the “yes” significant; genuine love is only possible where refusal is also possible. Thus, Mary’s “fiat” is the most radical act of freedom in human history: the creature who, having the option to refuse, says an unconditional “yes” to the Creator, and by this “yes,” makes Incarnation possible.

Mary’s fidelity to her “fiat” over thirty years demonstrates that her “yes” was truly “est, est,” without reservations, reversals, or revisions. From the “fiat” at the Annunciation to “fac quodcumque dixerit vobis” (“do whatever he tells you”) in Cana (John 2:5), and “stabat iuxta crucem” (“stood by the cross”) on Calvary (John 19:25), Mary’s “yes” remained absolutely consistent. In moments when everything seemed to contradict the logic of her initial “fiat,” the flight into Egypt, Jesus’ misunderstanding in the Temple, the Cross, Mary did not say “no” or “maybe.” Her original “yes” endured.

## III. “Do Whatever He Tells You”: Our Lady’s Saturday

Mary’s last words in the Gospels, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5), encapsulate her entire spirituality and mission. At Cana, when Mary addressed the servants at the feast, she is not imposing her will, manipulating Jesus to perform a miracle according to her desire; instead, she points to the Son and says, “Trust in him.” These words from Mary are the final act of a life entirely oriented towards Christ: she does not place herself at the center, claim her own authority, or speak for herself; rather, she is the spokesperson for the Son.

The dedication of Saturday to Our Lady, present in the liturgy since medieval times and confirmed by the reforms of Paul VI, has this theological foundation: Mary is he who, throughout the entire liturgical week, «*keeps and meditates in her heart*» (Lk 2,19) the Word that the other days proclaim. Saturday is the day of «*resting in God*», and Mary is the model of this rest: not idleness, but the inner quiet of one who is completely oriented towards God and does not need to «*run*» because she is already where she should be.

The practice of the «*First Five Saturdays*», proposed by the message from Fátima (1917) as a form of reparation and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, resonates with Mt 5:37: the reparation for «*sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary*» includes sins against the truth (blasphemy, slander, dishonorable representations of Mary), sins that violate the «*yes, yes. No, no*» of faithful word. The devotion of Saturday is thus a school of integrity in word: by honoring Mary whose word was always absolutely faithful, the Christian is invited to make his own word more credible.

**IV. The Christian Word in the Culture of «Narrative»**

The demand of Mt 5:33-37 has particular relevance in a world where «narrative» has replaced truth, where the credibility of institutions (political, religious, media) has been eroded by accumulated experience of lies, manipulation, and evasion. The «*evil*» identified by Mt 5:37 as the source of the need for oaths manifests itself today in the omnipresence of «spin», «post-truth», and «alternative facts», phenomena that corrupt human communication at its root.

The Christian response to this crisis of word is not the reintroduction of oaths or verification mechanisms, but the formation of people whose word is so absolutely credible that it dispenses with verification. This formation has in Mary its model: a life entirely oriented by fidelity to the initial «*fiat*», a life in which consistency between words and deeds did not admit exceptions. This consistency is not rigidity; it is the integrity of a heart undivided, that says what it feels and does what it says.

Monastic tradition found in Mt 5:37 the basis for «*conversatio morum*», the permanent conversion of conduct promised by religious life: not to promise great things all at once, but to promise a persistent orientation towards truth, consistency, and credible word. Mary who did not promise «*great things*» at the Announcement, promised only to be available, and then lived that availability faithfully until the end, is the model of this «*conversatio*»: the fidelity of each day that, accumulated, becomes the fidelity of a whole life.

*Mary, whose word, from the «*fiat*» of the Announcement to the «*do whatever he tells you*» of Cana, was always the absolute «*yes*» that did not need an oath to be believed, is the model of the disciple invited by the demand of Mt 5:37: one whose word is so faithful that it does not need to be sworn to be trusted.*

## References

– Benedict XVI, *Jesus of Nazareth* vol. I: *The Sermon on the Mount* (2007).
– John Paul II, *Redemptoris Mater* n. 13-14 (1987); available at https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/pt/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031987_redemptoris-mater.html.
– U. Luz, *Das Evangelium nach Matthäus* vol. I (1985).
– I. de la Potterie, *Maria nel mistero dell’Alleanza* (1988).