Mary Speaks

“Dear Mary mother of God. Wow. That’s heavy duty. Like, way worse than being the mother of a two-year-old. How did you cope? I’m having a hard enough time with two non-supernatural children. This parenting shit is not easy. Sorry. Didn’t mean to swear. I’m just so tired. “

“Tell me about it!” The statue of the virgin Mary said.

OMG. I heard a voice. Was I having a vision or just developing tinnitus? I was in a church but I still don’t expect a miracle to happen and a talking statue certainly qualifies as extraordinary in my book. I looked over my shoulder. There was no one else nearby.

“Were you talking to me?” I whispered.

“Well dear, you are the one who lit the candle and knelt down in front of me.” Her tone of voice sounded an awful lot like my Great Aunt Josie. Women of a certain age I guess.

“Okay,” I said very slowly while pinching myself. Ouch. Definitely awake.

“You didn’t expect me to answer back?” I think the statue smiled at this point. Was she laughing at me?

“It doesn’t usually happen.” I glanced around the church again to see if anyone else was witnessing this event. Frieda was arranging flowers at the altar but she wasn’t wearing her hearing aid today (she never did) so there was no way she could hear what was transpiring. It was possible that I was hallucinating. I had magic mushrooms once at university and they say you can have post-ingestion visions years later. Or is that LSD?

The statue, or Mary as it must be, was unperturbed by my doubts. “Usually people mumble a rote prayer, ask me to help a loved one and sometimes have a wee cry. I find it refreshing that you considered my problems. It wasn’t exactly easy being the mother of God, you know.”

I open and shut my mouth. Here I was with the Virgin Mary herself. Hell, (sorry, again) I may as well take advantage of the situation.

“You are supposed to be the mother we all model ourselves after. I thought you might have some parenting tips. Things aren’t going too well for me at home and I’m sure you had to deal with some rough stuff. I mean, I’m sure Jesus was never a little ratbag but um…”

She interrupted my floundering. “He didn’t do what we expected. His father, I mean Joseph, trained him to be a carpenter and we had a decent business that Jesus was supposed to take over. Then one day, he up and leaves. I can’t say we were thrilled at the time and of course, I wondered what I had done wrong.”

“And you were a very young mother,” I added.

“Fourteen! What did I know at fourteen? What does any girl know at fourteen? I said yes when the angel asked me – I was given a choice but when an angel makes an offer, is it a good idea to refuse? I didn’t think so at the time.”

“You regret the decision?”

“No, of course not. Jesus was the perfect child. I couldn’t have been more blessed. No tantrums, no bed wetting, he hardly ever even got sick. There was that time he ran away to the temple and we went mad trying to find him. But one transgression in his whole childhood. How can I complain?” She sighed. “It was annoying when he got all shirty about turning the water into wine but he was grown by then. Not a sweet little boy anymore. Every mother has to watch their babies turn into adults and grow a mind of their own. He got distant from us. Not like he was better than us, though he was of course but we just couldn’t relate to what he was going through so he went off into the desert and spent time with his cousin John.”

“John?”

“Elizabeth’s son. John the Baptist. John was a bit different from day one. These days you would say he was on the spectrum. I think he fasted too much and he didn’t wear a hat. The desert sun can be vicious, you know. He got obsessed with the whole messiah concept. At first we thought it was political, that he wanted to overthrow the Romans but after he and Jesus went camping in the Judean Wilderness he decided Jesus was it. I mean, he was right but John announced it publicly. Almost immediately things got blown out of proportion. There were all these followers, some of them a bit mad to tell the truth and they latched onto my boy like he was going to magically solve all the world’s problems. It was too much. Without John, Jesus might have eased into the role more slowly, in a quiet way. There crowds would have been smaller. When you have a crowd, you have to perform and those miracles really irritated the Pharisees.”

“Right.” This version of the bible was new to me.

“They were jealous, of course. It’s not like the Pharisees could whip up a miracle whenever they wanted to. John acted like the social media of the time, telling everyone that the good news was coming. And then people expected Jesus to provide it.”

“But John,”

“I know. He ended up with his head on a plate. Poor Elizabeth. Couldn’t even have a proper funeral with her son in bits and pieces. It destroyed her entirely.”

“You’re not that keen on John the Baptist then? The church has him down as a major prophet.”

“I never said I didn’t care for him. He was my cousin’s son.” She let out a much bigger sigh this time. “I just wish things had turned out differently. For John as well as Jesus.”

“What happened then?” She looked like she might cry and I thought I should distract her.

“The disciples. They were good lads but very much hoping Jesus’ stardom would brush off on them. And they loved the miracles. Remember how they pulled together a huge crowd and then asked Jesus to feed them? Every one of those people had a home to go to with plenty food waiting. They didn’t need to be served by Jesus but it made the mission look good and it did teach people about sharing so I suppose it was the right thing to do. I just resent the constant need to make my son perform. It exhausted him.”

She was going down another negative tangent. “What is your favourite story from the gospel? Not a miracle I take it.”

Her hands were already clasped but I saw her grip them tighter and give a small nod.

“The woman accused of adultery.” I raised my eyebrows. “It was the bloke who started the affair you know. He was terribly handsome and knew it. A real ladies man. She was lonely and flattered by his attention. Then, when they were discovered, she got the blame.”

“Slut shaming. It’s still happening,” I agreed.

She pursed her lips. “Men have never been able to keep their peckers in their pants!”

I choked on a laugh, coughed and then added, “At least Jesus didn’t blame her.”

“Absolutely not. He is the son of God after all knew exactly what happened. He couldn’t condone her actions but If justice was to be done, it should have been the man being stoned. Yet if they stoned every man that played away we’d have a hard time creating the next generation. Jesus said the perfect thing, ‘He who has no sin may cast the first stone.’ Oh, that took the wind out of their sails! They hypocritical bastards.

“Mary!”

“Come on. I’ve been listening to you people pray at me for 2000 years. I couldn’t help but pick up some of the language after all this time.”

I bit my lip, trying not to smile.

“The only truly awful thing about being Jesus’ mum was at the end.”

There was a long silence. I thought I’d lost her.

“He left me long before the crucifixion. Once he started preaching, he belonged to the masses and I hardly ever saw him. Once in a blue moon he’d come home for a meal or to get his laundry done but for the most part, he was off with his twelve, doing their converting thing. I didn’t even know he’d been arrested until Martha sent me a message. Martha was a great lady. Really underplayed in the bible. She was organized, fed the disciples at any time of day or night, dealt with all the healing requests. She was the oil that allowed the cogs to turn. Without her, there would have been no ministry but the story shows her as running around too busy to hear Jesus’s words while her sister sat on big bottom and left all the work to Martha. I suppose these days you’d call her a workaholic. But someone needed to point the men in the right direction. You know what men are like.”

“You got there in time, thanks to Martha.”

“Yes, thanks to Martha I was there with him at the end. I got to watch my son die in agony over three of the longest hours in history.” Her head dropped and we sat in quiet together. Then her chin lifted. “Don’t feel sorry for me. He came back to life. I see him on a regular basis now. The mothers of kids with cancer aren’t so lucky, are they? So, yes. I suffered but my pain is nothing compared to so many other mothers watching their children die of starvation or disease. Die because of war or acts of violence. Needless, pointless deaths. Jesus died for a reason. It made sense. Any time a child dies before their parent, it is the world gone wrong, except for Jesus. His was the only understandable death.”

“I feel stupid complaining about my kids.”

“Don’t. Every mother gets overwhelmed from time to time. You are doing your best. Just remember to be grateful that you have the little brats.”