When Catherine of Siena was only a girl, she had difficulty relating to her family. She resented her household chores and longed to cloister herself within a convent. A wise teacher, however, counseled her to remember that she could always keep a little cell within her own heart to which she could inwardly retire.

St. Teresa of Avila called it an "interior castle of the soul" that no cares or fears could storm.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, must have had a little interior castle of her own. Luke, in his tender and warm-hearted way, concludes his version of the Christmas story by telling us that Mary "kept these things and pondered them in her heart." What were the things Mary kept in her heart? We can only speculate, of course. But some things seem to jump out from this “the best loved of all…